PORTRAI 

OF    THE 
SIXTIES 


B  v      JUSTIN 

MCCARTHY 


, 


a  '- 
3 


PORTRAITS 
OF    THE    SIXTIES 


BY 


JUSTIN    P^gCARTHY 

AUTHOR  OF    "THE  REIGN   OF   QUEEN   ANNE" 
;A  HISTORY   OF  THE   FOUR   GEORGES   AND  WILLIAM   IV."   ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER    6-    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK   AND   LONDON 

1903 


Copyright,  1903,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  October,  1903. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  EARLY  SIXTIES 1 

II.  CHARLES  DICKENS 11 

III.  W.  M.  THACKERAY 22 

IV.  THOMAS  CARLYLE — ALFRED  TENNYSON 34 

V.  RICHARD  OWEN — THE  BROTHERS  NEWMAN  ....  45 

VI.  RICHARD   COBDEN       59 

VII.  JOHN   BRIGHT 75 

VIII.  SIR  STAFFORD  NORTHCOTE 88 

IX.  A  PARLIAMENTARY  GROUP 99 

X.  ANOTHER  PARLIAMENTARY  GROUP 122 

XI.  FROM  COMMONS  TO  LORDS 140 

XII.  "  CROWNLESS   SOVEREIGNTIES  " 158 

XIII.  SIR  RICHARD  AND  LADY  BURTON 171 

XIV.  Two    PHILANTHROPISTS .    .  179 

XV.  RUSKIN    AND    THE    PRE-RAPHAELITES 191 

XVI.  JOHN   ARTHUR   ROEBUCK 202 

XVII.  ITALY'S  ENGLISH  SYMPATHIZERS 215 

XVIII.  STARS  THAT  ROSE  IN  THE  SIXTIES 236 

XIX.  LORD  CLARENCE  PAGET — THOROLD  ROGERS  ....  253 

XX.  GOLDWIN    SMITH 267 

XXI.  THE  KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND  WEBSTER 278 

XXII.  THE   BANCROFTS 294 

XXIII.  THREE  QUEENS  OF  SONG 304 

XXIV.  THREE  STAGE  GRACES    .     .     .     .^ 317 

XXV.  SOME  QUEENS  OF  SOCIETY 327 

XXVI.  LAST  WORDS 337 

iii 


THE  TREATY  OF  PARIS,    I860 Frontispiece 

CHARLES    DICKENS Facing  p.    12 

THOMAS    CARLYLE "           36 

LORD    TENNYSON "           40 

RICHARD    OWEN "           46 

FACSIMILE    OF   OWEN'S    MS "           48 

JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN .  ) 

5-  "  52 

FRANCIS   WILLIAM  NEWMAN ) 

BRIGHT,    COBDEN,    AND    MILNER    GIBSON "  60 

JOHN    BRIGHT,    M.P. 

84 

SIB   STAFFORD  NORTHCOTE,   M.P. 

EDWARD    BAINES,    M.P.     .      .      . 

104 
O.   M.   WHALLEY,   M.P. 

J.    A.    BLAKE.    M.P. 

"       112 
LORD   DUNKELLIN    .      .      . 

DANIEL   O'CONNELL,   M.P. 

*  "        116 

THOMAS   CHANDLER   HALIBURTON,   M.P. 

CAPTAIN    GOSSET,    M.P , 

}-  "         126 

SIR    PATRICK    O  BRIEN,    M.P.      . 

THOMAS    BAYLEY    POTTER,    M.P. 

"         130 
JAMES   WHITE,   M.P 

E.    H.    KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN,    M.P. 

"         134 
RIGHT    HONORABLE    WILLIAM    FRANCIS    COWPER, 


GATHORNE     GATHORNE-HARDY     AND     JOHN     STEWART 

GATHORNE-HARDY,    M.P'S "         138 

LORD    JOHN    RUSSELL 
LADY   RUSSELL 

THE  FIRST  LORD  LYTTON "         148 

V 


1,    M.P.  ) 

\ 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE   EMPEBOR    OF    BRAZIL ) 

V  Facing  p.  162 
THE    EMPRESS    OF    BRAZIL ) 

DON    CARLOS "         166 

SIR    RICHARD    BURTON 

V         "      174 

LADY   BURTON 


LORD    8HAJFTESBURY 

GEORGE    PEABODY 

JOHN    RUSKIN "         192 

JOHN    ARTHUR   ROEBUCK,    M.P "         204 

G.    GARIBALDI "         216 

GIUSEPPE    MAZZINI "        218 

EMILIE  ASHUBST  VENTUBI 

JESSIE    WHITE    MARIO 


EDWAKD    8OTHERN 

246 

CHARLES  ALBERT  FECHTER  . 

LORD   CLARENCE   PAGET,    M.P.    . 

"        256 
GEORGE    CLIVE,    M.P.    . 

COLONEL   DUNNE,    M.P „      .      .      .  , 

RICHARD   MONTESQUIEU  BELLEW,   M.P. 
ROBERT    KEELEY  .... 


282 

FREDERICK   BOBSON      . 

MARIE    EFFIE    WILTON , 

TERESA    TITIENS 


ADELINA    PATTI 

306 
tYDIA    THOMPSON 

CHRISTINE   NILSSON "        312 

MRS.    GEORGE   CAVENDISH    BENTINCK  "         334 


PORTRAITS   OF   THE    SIXTIES 


PORTRAITS  OF  THE  SIXTIES 

CHAPTER   I 

THE    EARLY    SIXTIES 

THE  early  sixties  have  left  a  clear  and  deep  impres- 
sion on  my  memory.  It  was  in  the  earliest  of  the  sixties 
that  I  settled  in  London  for  a  life  of  journalism  and 
literature,  to  be  much  interrupted  afterwards  by  poli- 
tics. The  London  of  the  early  sixties  had  no  Thames 
Embankment  and  no  underground  railways  and  no 
tram-cars;  the  Law  Courts  on  the  Strand  had  not  yet 
been  dreamed  of,  and  some  of  the  judges  still  held 
their  tribunals  within  enclosures  opening  from  what  I 
may  call  the  off-side  of  Westminster  Hall.  But  the 
outer  aspect  of  London  street  life  was  not  very  differ- 
ent from  that  which  we  can  contemplate  at  the  present 
day.  The  hansom-cabs  and  the  "  growlers,"  familiar 
to  all  eyes  now,  were  familiar  to  all  eyes  then.  The 
great,  palatial  restaurants  where  fashion  now  entertains 
its  friends  at  luncheons,  dinners,  and  suppers  were  not 
in  existence  then,  and  the  smart  Londoner  of  the  early 
sixties  would  not  have  thought  of  inviting  his  friends 
to  a  banquet  in  the  taverns  of  the  time.  I  may  observe 
that  the  word  "  smart "  used  as  I  have  just  used  it  in 
the  conventional  language  of  the  present  reign  would 
have  conveyed  no  such  meaning  to  the  mind  of  a  Lon- 
doner in  the  sixties. 

1 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

The  Thames  tunnel  was  still  the  wonder  and  delight 
of  provincial  visitors,  there  were  still  some  toll-bridges 
spanning  the  Thames  between  Westminster  and  Lon- 
don Bridge,  and  Westminster  Bridge  and  London 
Bridge  and  Blackfriars  Bridge  were  erections  of  very 
different  shape  and  structure  from  those  which  main- 
tain the  names  in  our  present  time.  The  river  traffic 
in  the  early  sixties  was  carried  on  by  an  immense  num- 
ber of  incessant  steamers,  which,  indeed,  relieved  the 
streets  of  a  large  proportion  of  passengers,  and  did  in 
their  much  smaller  way  something  like  the  work  now 
accomplished  by  underground  lines  and  "  tubes."  But 
I  think  I  am  warranted  in  saying  that,  even  when  we 
take  the  latest  schemes  of  metropolitan  improvement 
into  view,  the  general  appearance  of  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don has  not  undergone,  since  the  early  sixties,  anything 
like  the  changes  which  have  been  made  in  New  York 
and  in  Paris  during  the  same  time.  Many  of  the  great 
theatres  which  were  fashionable  or  popular,  or  fash- 
ionable and  popular,  in  the  sixties  still  hold  their 
position  and  their  repute,  but,  of  course,  many  new 
theatres  have  been  added,  and  in  the  early  sixties  the 
suburban  theatres  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  had  any 
existence.  When  we  consider  the  changes  which  have 
taken  place  in  other  European  countries  since  the  time 
when  this  book  opens,  it  might  almost  seem  as  if  the 
people  of  England  had  been  living  just  the  same  life 
during  the  lapse  of  all  these  forty  years  and  more. 

Let  us  take  the  condition  of  France,  for  instance. 
The  Emperor  Napoleon  the  Third  was  then  at  the 
zenith  of  his  power  and  his  fame.  He  had  but  lately 
defeated  the  Austrians  in  the  campaign  of  which  Sol- 
ferino  was  the  greatest  triumph,  and  he  was  universally 
regarded  as  the  most  powerful  sovereign  on  the  Conti- 
nent of  Europe.  Even  those  in  England  who  most 

2 


THE    EARLY    SIXTIES 

strongly  condemned  his  usurpation  of  power  and  his 
despotic  rule  felt  reluctantly  compelled  to  regard  him 
as  the  founder  of  a  new  dynasty  and  as  the  force  which 
had  finally  extinguished  in  France  the  republican  sys- 
tem brought  in  by  the  great  Revolution.  On  the  other 
hand,  almost  all  Englishmen  were  agreed  in  regarding 
the  position  of  Prussia  as  one  of  mere  insignificance, 
and  out  of  all  consideration  so  far  as  political  influence 
was  concerned.  Not  one  of  our  statesmen  or  our  lead- 
ing political  writers  seems  to  have  given  any  indica- 
tion, in  the  early  sixties,  that  Prussia  impressed  him 
as  a  rising  power  or  a  power  capable  of  rising  in  the 
political  affairs  of  Europe.  I  do  not  know  of  any  phe- 
nomenon in  modern  history  more  curious  than  the  ap- 
parent incapacity  of  English  statesmen  and  political 
writers,  at  that  time,  to  make  any  forecast  as  to  Prus- 
sia's political  possibilities.  The  American  republic 
was  just  then  engaged  in  its  great  domestic  struggle, 
and  the  war  between  North  and  South  created  naturally 
an  intense  excitement  throughout  England.  It  may, 
indeed,  be  said  to  have  divided  the  people  of  England 
into  two  hostile  camps — the  advocates  of  the  Northern 
States  and  the  advocates  of  the  Southern  Secessionists. 
It  may  be  said,  not  unfairly,  that  the  whole  of  what  we 
describe  as  "  society  "  in  England  was  in  favor  of  the 
South,  and  fully  believed  that  the  South  was  certain 
to  make  itself  an  independent  republic,  while  the  ad- 
vanced Radicals  of  whatever  order  in  England  and  all 
the  English  working  population  were  on  the  side  of 
the  Northern  States,  and  were  confident  that  the  North- 
ern cause  must  ultimately  triumph.  Egypt  was  still 
under  the  rule  of  its  Pachas,  and  the  Ottoman  power  in 
Turkey  was  still  regarded  by  many  Englishmen  as  a 
needful  bulwark  of  British  interests  against  the  pos- 
sible encroachments  of  Russia.  The  wildest  dreamer 

3 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

had  not  yet  thought  of  a  system  of  railways  extending 
from  Egypt  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  or  of  Russia 
opening  up  the  resources  of  Siberia  by  the  pathway  of 
the  iron  rail. 

Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Russell  were  still  rivals 
or  colleagues;   Brougham   and   Lyndhurst   were   still 
waking  up  the  House  of  Lords  by  their  curiously  con- 
trasted  styles   of   eloquence;    Gladstone   had   already 
achieved  some  of  his  most  splendid  financial  triumphs; 
Cpbden  had  accomplished  a  great  commercial  treaty 
with    France;    Bright   was   the    foremost    democratic 
orator  in  the  House  of  Commons.     Disraeli  still  held 
his  place  without  a  rival  as  the  brilliant  leader  of  the 
conservative  party  in  the  representative  chamber,  and 
Sir  Edward  Lytton  Bulwer  was  able  to  convince  the 
audiences  in  that  same  chamber  that  a  writer  of  showy 
and  fascinating  novels  might,  notwithstanding  the  most 
serious  defects  of  articulation,  prove  himself  in  his 
later  years  a  successful  parliamentary  orator.     In  lit- 
erature our  acknowledged  leaders  were  Tennyson,  Dick- 
ens, and  Thackeray,  but  Thackeray's  life  "came  to  a 
close  at  a  very  early  period  of  the  sixties.    Carlyle  was 
creating  a  school  of  thought  and  of  letters  all  to  him- 
self, and  John  Stuart  Mill  was  teaching  us  the  princi- 
ples of  political  economy  and  of  expanded  political  lib- 
eralism.    Robert  Browning  had  not  yet  become  the 
fashion,  and  only  by  men  and  women  of  intellect  was 
recognized  as  a  great  and  genuine  poet.     Macaulay's 
career  as  essayist,  historian,  verse-writer,  and  parlia- 
mentary debater  had  just  come  to  an  end.    George  Grote 
had  still  some  years  of  noble  work  before  him,  and  al- 
though he  never  could  be  called  a  popular  historian  in 
the  ordinary  sense,  his  influence  on  the  study  of  history 
was  inestimable.    Maclise  and  Landseer  were  probably 
the  most  universally  admired  among  painters  at  that 

4 


THE    EARLY    SIXTIES 

time.  The  great  singers  of  the  opera-houses — Covent 
Garden  and  Her  Majesty's — were  Grisi,  Alboni — Jenny 
Lind  had  ceased  to  sing  on  the  operatic  stage — Mario, 
Tamberlik,  and  Labi  ache.  In  the  homes  of  the  regular 
drama  Charles  Mathews,  Charles  Kean,  the  Keeleys, 
and  Buxton  were  most  popular,  and  Helen  Faucit  was 
recognized  as  the  most  successful  actress  in  the  Shake- 
spearean drama.  Macready  had  taken  his  final  farewell 
of  the  English  stage  before  the  time  with  which  our  nar- 
rative opens,  and  Frederick  Robson  had  just  begun  to 
make  himself  famous  in  his  short  career  as  the  creator 
of  a  style  which  combined  in  original,  fantastic,  and  un- 
surpassed fashion  the  elements  of  the  broadly  burlesque 
and  the  deeply  tragic. 

There  is  one  peculiarity  belonging  to  the  early  sixties 
which  I  cannot  leave  out  of  notice,  although  assuredly 
it  has  little  claim  to  association  with  art  or  science,  with 
literature  or  politics.  The  early  sixties  saw  in  this  and 
most  other  civilized  countries  the  reign  of  crinoline. 
It  is  well  for  the  early  sixties  that  they  had  so  many 
splendid  claims  to  historical  recollection,  but  it  may 
be  said  of  them  that  if  they  had  bequeathed  no  other 
memory  to  a  curious  and  contemplative  posterity,  the 
reign  of  crinoline  would  still  have  secured  for  them  an 
abiding-place  in  the  records  of  human  eccentricities. 
I  may  say,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  no  one 
who  was  not  living  at  the  time  can  form  any  adequate 
idea  of  the  grotesque  effect  produced  on  the  outer  aspects 
of  social  life  by  this  article  of  feminine  costume.  The 
younger  generation  may  turn  over  as  much  as  it  will 
the  pages  of  Punch,  which  illustrate  the  ways  and  man- 
ners of  civilization  at  that  time,  but  with  all  the  un- 
deniable cleverness  and  humor  of  Punch's  best  carica- 
turists, the  younger  generation  can  never  really  under- 
stand, can  never  fully  realize,  what  extraordinary 

5 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

exhibitions  their  polite  ancestresses  made  of  themselves 
during  that  terrible  reign  of  crinoline. 

"Hang  up  philosophy,"  says  Romeo,  "unless  phi- 
losophy can  make  a  Juliet."     I  should  not  like  to  say 
hang  up  caricature  unless  caricature  can  make  a  crino- 
line  because  such  a  sentence,  if  it  could  by  possibility 
be  carried  out,  would  only  speak  the  doom  of  the  cari^ 
Jurist's  amusing  and  delightful  art.     The  f ashion  o 
crinoline  defied  caricature,  for  the  actual  reality  was 
more  full  of  unpicturesque  and  burlesque  effects  than 
any  satirical  pencil  could  realize  on  a  flat,  outspread 
sheet  of  paper.    The  fashion  of  crinoline,  too,  defied  all 
c^n  empoPraPry  ridicule.    A  whole  new  school  of  satirical 
humor  was  devoted  in  vain  to  the  ridicule  of  crinoline^ 
The  boys  in  the  streets  sang  comic  songs  to  make  fun  oi 
it,  but  no  street  bellowings  of  contempt  could  mcit 
the  wearers  of  this  most  inconvenient  and  hideous  ar- 
ticle of  dress  to  condemn  themselves  to  clinging  c 

^Crinoline,  too,  created  a  new  sort  of  calamity  all  its 
own.     Every  day's  papers  gave  us  fresh  accounts  of 
what  were  called  crinoline  accidents-cases   that  i 
ray7in  which  a  woman  was  severely  burned  or  burned 
Jdeath  because  of  some  flame  of  fire  or  candle  catch- 
ing her  distended  drapery  at  some  unexpected  moment 
There  were  sacrifices  made  to  the  prevailing  fashion 
which  would  have  done  the  sufferers  immortal  hono 
5  they  had  been  made  for  the  sake  of  bearing  some 
religious  or  political  emblem  condemned  by  ruling .and 
despotic  authorities.    Its  inconvenience  was    elt  by  the 
male  population  as  well  as  by  the  ladies  who  sported 
the  obnoxious  construction.     A  woman  getting  into  or 
out  of  a  carriage,  an  omnibus,  or  a  tram,  making  her 
way  through  a  crowded  room,  or  entering  into  the  stal 
of  a  theatre  was  a  positive  nuisance  to  all  with  whom 


THE    EARLY    SIXTIES 

she  had  to  struggle  for  her  passage.  The  hoop-petticoats 
of  an  earlier  generation  were  moderate  in  their  dimen- 
sions and  slight  in  the  inconvenience  they  caused  when 
compared  with  the  rigid  and  enormous  structure  in 
which  our  ladies  endeavored  to  conform  to  the  fashion 
set  up  by  the  Empress  of  the  French. 

I  remember  well  seeing  a  great  tragic  queen  of  opera 
going  through  a  thrilling  part  at  one  of  the  lyric  theatres. 
Her  crinoline  was  of  ultra-expansion,  was  rigid  and  un- 
yielding in  its  structure  as  the  mail  corselet  of  the  Maid 
of  Orleans.  The  skirt  of  silk  or  satin  spread  over  it 
was  so  symmetrically  and  rigidly  conformed  to  the  out- 
lines of  the  crinoline  that  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  pasted 
to  the  vast  arrangement  beneath.  The  thrill  and  tragedy 
of  the  part  were  wholly  lost  on  me.  I  could  only  see  the 
unpicturesque  absurdity  of  the  exhibition.  I  could  feel 
no  sympathy  with  the  dramatic  sufferings  of  the  melo- 
dious heroine  thus  enclosed.  Every  movement  and  rush 
of  passion,  of  prayer,  of  wild  despair,  or  distracted  love 
was  lost  on  me,  for  each  change  of  posture  only  brought 
into  more  striking  display  the  fact  that  I  was  looking 
at  a  slight  and  graceful  woman  boxed  up  in  some  sort 
of  solid  barrel  of  preposterous  size  over  which  her  skirt 
was  artificially  spread.  To  this  day  I  can  only  think  of 
that  glorious  singer  as  of  a  woman  for  some  reason  com- 
pelled to  exhibit  herself  on  the  stage  with  a  barrel 
fastened  round  her  waist.  A  lyrical  heroine  jumping 
in  a  sack  would  have  been  graceful  and  reasonable  by 
comparison.  Do  what  we  will,  we  who  lived  in  those 
days  cannot  dissociate  our  memories  of  the  crinoline 
from  our  memories  of  the  woman  of  the  period. 

We  had  not  in  the  early  sixties  the  vast,  splendid, 
and  artistically  arranged  music-halls  of  a  later  gen- 
eration. We  had  music-halls  indeed,  but  they  were 
comparatively  small  and  darksome  enclosures,  where 

7 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

comic  songs  were  sung  and  grotesque  buffoonery  was 
enacted,  but  which  women  were  not  expected  to  visit — 
at  least  as  part  of  the  audience.  We  have  made  distinct 
improvement  in  the  style  of  our  music-halls  since  those 
days,  and  the  ordinary  man  of  the  world  who  belongs 
to  our  time  would  find  himself  much  amazed  and  not 
a  little  abashed  if  he  could  by  some  magical  power  be 
carried  back  to  listen  to  some  of  the  songs  at  the  Caves 
of  Harmony  or  the  Cyder  Cellars,  or  to  be  present  at 
the  Judge-and-Jury  performances  which  we  attended 
unabashed  during  the  passing  of  the  early  sixties. 

I  devote  my  opening  chapter  to  these  few  rapid  and 
disconnected  illustrations  of  London  life  in  the  early 
sixties  as  a  general  introduction,  which  I  propose  to  set 
off  by  written  descriptions.  These  portraits  bring  back 
the  likenesses  of  men  and  women  who  were  famous, 
or  conspicuous,  or  peculiar  and  odd  and  eccentric  in 
the  years  which,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Fisher  Unwin, 
I  am  endeavoring  to  illustrate  and  to  bring  back  to  life 
for  the  public  of  the  present  century.  Many  of  the 
portraits  bring  their  own  fame  with  them,  and  must 
ever  be  studied  with  interest.  Others  are  the  likenesses 
of  men  and  women  who  made  themselves,  or  were  made, 
conspicuous  in  their  own  time,  and  in  every  instance  the 
likeness  is  that  of  one  on  whom,  for  some  reason,  the 
attention  of  the  world  was  for  a  while  directed,  and  each 
portrait  tells  a  story  characteristic  of  the  events  and  the 
movements  occupying  attention  just  then.  After  this 
short  and  prefatory  chapter  I  shall  go  on  to  pass  my 
portraits  in  review.  I  may  add  that  I  am  not  relying 
on  contemporary  records  for  any  of  my  descriptions, 
and  that  I  am  telling  of  men  and  women  whom  I  have 
seen  and  most  of  whom  I  have  known.  I  have  to  make 
a  further  explanation. 

There  are  grave  authorities  upon  literature  and  its 

8 


THE    EARLY    SIXTIES 

rules  who  maintain  that  nothing  should  be  explained  in 
advance,  and  that  the  narrative,  whatever  it  is,  should 
tell  its  own  story  as  it  unfolds  itself,  on  the  principle 
that  if  it  does  not  thus  tell  its  own  story  it  is  the  fault 
of  the  narrator,  and  only  shows  that  he  is  not  equal  to 
his  work.  Despite  those  edicts,  however,  I  venture  to 
tell  my  readers  that  this  book  does  not  by  any  means 
profess  or  pretend  to  be  anything  like  a  description  or 
history  of  the  early  sixties,  or  of  the  figures  which  have 
given  it  a  place  of  mark  among  the  ages.  I  find  ready  to 
my  hand  a  collection  of  portraits  belonging  to  the  period, 
and  I  shall  merely  discourse  of  these  and  of  the  men 
and  women  whom  they  represent  without  the  slightest 
effort  or  intention  to  make  of  them  a  complete  illustra- 
tion of  their  time.  Some  of  the  most  important  events 
and  figures  of  those  days  are  entirely  outside  the  range 
of  my  purpose.  I  take  the  figures  as  they  pass  before 
me  just  as  one  might  describe  to  a  stranger  the  persons 
who  moved  along  in  some  public  procession,  and  have 
no  pretension  to  do  anything  more  than  to  tell  him 
something  about  each  of  those  who  come  under  our 
momentary  observation.  Such  a  description  cannot  be 
given  without  helping  the  younger  generation  of  readers 
to  become  more  familiar  than  before  with  many  of  the 
characteristic  figures  which  distinguished  the  period, 
and  in  this  way  to  bring  the  early  sixties  more  clearly 
to  their  minds.  I  speak  of  those  whom  I  have  seen  and 
known.  I  give  my  own  recollections  and  impressions 
only  and  act  merely  as  showman  to  my  friend  Fisher 
Unwinds  gallery  of  portraits.  For  the  convenience  of 
the  reader  I  shall  endeavor  to  arrange  these  pictures 
in  separate  groups,  and  to  describe  the  representatives 
of  arts  and  science,  of  letters  and  politics,  of  commerce 
and  of  social  life  as  if  they  were  passing  in  separate 
processions  before  our  eyes.  As  my  recollections  are 

9 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

aided  by  the  portraits,  I  shall  endeavor  to  make  the  por- 
traits more  lifelike  to  the  minds  of  my  readers  by  the 
help  of  my  own  recollections.  "  The  best  in  this 
kind  are  but  shadows;  and  the  worst  are  no  worse  if 
imagination  amend  them."  This  is  the  kindly  saying 
of  Theseus  in  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  and  I 
cannot  offer  any  better  apology  for  my  shadowy  recol- 
lections. 


CHAPTER   II 


THE  portrait  of  Charles  Dickens  is  the  most  appro- 
priate illustration  with  which  to  open  these  sketches 
from  memory  of  men  and  women  who  were  living  in 
the  early  sixties.  This  likeness  of  Dickens  represents 
him  in  one  of  those  moods  of  rather  melancholy  thought- 
fulness  with  which  those  who  knew  him  then  were  fa- 
miliar. There  was  a  certain  depth  of  melancholy  under- 
neath all  the  joyous  activity  of  Dickens's  ordinary 
moods,  and  it  is  profoundly  characteristic  of  even  his 
most  humorous  and  exhilarating  stories  if  only  we  pause 
to  look  a  little  beneath  the  surface.  It  is  not  thus  that 
he  presents  himself  to  our  memory  if  we  trust  to  our 
recollections  of  him  as  he  appeared  when  delivering 
one  of  his  lectures  or  making,  on  some  joyous  occasion, 
one  of  his  after-dinner  speeches,  or  talking  with  cheer- 
ful animation  in  the  company  of  his  friends. 

Readers  of  the  present  generation  will  find  it  hard  to 
understand  how  supreme  and  universal  was  the  in- 
fluence of  Dickens  at  the  time  which  this  volume  en- 
deavors to  recall.  So  far  as  mere  popularity  was  con- 
cerned, he  had  then  absolutely  no  rival.  We  have  at 
present  no  such  reigning  monarch  of  fiction.  Dickens 
was  read  by  every  one,  high  and  low,  the  cultured  and 
uncultured,  who  cared  to  read  a  novel.  Walter  Scott 
was  the  only  writer  who  in  modern  days  could  claim 
a  popularity  surpassing  or  even  equal  to  that  of  Charles 

11 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Dickens.  Thackeray  was  admitted  by  most  readers, 
even  then,  to  stand  on  a  literary  level  with  Dickens 
and  to  dispute  his  absolute  supremacy,  but  Thackeray's 
readers  never  approached  in  numbers  to  those  over 
whom  the  novels  of  Dickens  exercised  a  complete  sway. 
Thackeray  himself  once  said  that  the  readers  of  his 
books  did  not  number  one  in  seven  of  those  who  devoted 
themselves  to  the  green-covered  monthly  numbers  which 
gave  forth  in  serial  form  such  books  as  Pickwick, 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  and  David  Copperfield.  Dickens 
was  a  year  younger  than  Thackeray,  and  he  outlived 
him  for  seven  years.  Thackeray  has  described  in  some 
striking  sentences  how  the  young  man  Charles  Dickens 
suddenly  moved  up  from  the  ranks  of  the  beginners,  and 
took  his  place  as  if  by  right  at  the  very  head  of  the 
literary  class,  and  kept  his  leadership  as  a  matter  of 
course.  I  am  not  now  entering  into  any  comparison 
between  the  two  great  men  who  represented  two  such 
different  schools  of  fiction,  and  I  regard  all  such  com- 
parisons as  futile,  needless,  and  thankless.  I  am  merely 
recording  the  absolute  fact  that  in  popularity  Dickens 
stood  without  a  rival. 

When  I  first  came  to  London,  Dickens  was  at  the 
very  zenith  of  his  fame  and  his  influence.  To  meet  him 
in  the  Strand  or  in  Piccadilly  was  an  event  to  be  remem- 
bered in  the  life  of  a  young  man  then  passing  through 
the  streets  of  London.  Dickens  began  his  literary  career 
as  a  reporter  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  in  my  early  days  of  journalism  I  heard  from  elder 
men  engaged  in  the  same  occupation  many  an  interest- 
ing and  delightful  anecdote  of  his  remarkable  skill  in 
his  work  and  of  his  genial  and  companionable  qualities. 
It  was  his  gift  to  be  able  to  make  himself  a  master  of 
any  craft  to  which  he  applied  his  mind  and  his  energies, 
and  I  have  often  been  assured  that  he  was  the  quickest 

12 


CHARLES   DICKENS 


CHARLES    DICKENS 

and  most  accurate  reporter  of  his  time  in  the  House  of 
Commons  gallery.  We  may  judge  what  a  capacity  he 
had  for  success  in  any  path  which  inspired  him  with 
interest,  from  the  opinion  which  I  have  often  heard 
given  by  some  of  the  leading  actors  of  that  time,  that 
if  the  novelist  had  thought  fit  to  turn  his  artistic 
talents  to  the  business  of  the  stage  he  would  have  won 
for  himself  a  place  among  the  highest  of  the  theatrical 
profession.  At  one  period  Dickens  felt  strongly  drawn 
towards  such  a  career,  but  his  peculiar  genius  was  too 
commanding  to  allow  of  any  deflection,  and  the  world 
has  the  best  reason  to  be  glad  that  he  kept  himself  stead- 
ily to  his  calling  as  a  writer  of  novels.  Amateur  acting 
was,  however,  always  one  of  his  favorite  recreations, 
and  he  was  universally  regarded  as  the  most  capable 
amateur  actor  in  England. 

Dickens  did  not  forget  his  old  friends  and  associates 
when  he  had  attained  his  supreme  height  in  the  litera- 
ture of  fiction,  and  it  was  to  that  fact  that  I  owed  the 
honor  of  his  personal  acquaintance.  I  was  for  one 
session  a  reporter  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  through  some  elder  brothers  of  the  craft  I 
had  the  honor  of  being  introduced  to  the  great  novelist. 
I  may  say  at  once  that  my  acquaintance  with  Dickens 
was  of  the  slightest,  and  I  never  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  ranked  among  his  friends.  But  it  was  a  source 
of  unspeakable  delight  and  pride  to  me  to  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  meeting  him  now  and  then  in  private  inter- 
course, and  to  have  acquired  the  right  of  going  up  to 
him  and  inviting  his  recognition.  I  need  hardly  say 
that  I  felt  as  if  I  had  achieved  a  triumph  whenever  I 
happened  to  meet  Dickens  and  he  remembered  who  I 
was  and  addressed  me  by  my  name.  When  a  small  boy 
living  in  an  Irish  southern  city  I  had  written  once  to 
Dickens  and  asked  him  for  his  autograph,  and  to  my 

13 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

inexpressible  delight  I  received  within  a  very  few  days 
a  kindly  line  from  the  great  novelist  with  his  peculiar 
and  characteristic  signature. 

I  had  heard  all  of  Dickens's  readings  when  I  was 
working  as  a  journalist  in  Liverpool  before  I  ventured 
to  attempt  the  business  of  journalism  in  London,  and 
I  certainly  believed  that  I  had  attained  the  very  pin- 
nacle of  self-satisfaction  when  I  found  myself,  as  I  have 
described,  within  the  circle  of  his  personal  acquaint- 
ances. Our  casual  meetings  in  London  only  brought 
me  to  the  interchange  of  a  few  words  each  time  with 
Dickens,  for  I  was  young  and  rather  shy  and  totally 
obscure,  and  I  hardly  ever  ventured  in  his  presence  to 
offer  any  observation  on  my  own  account.  This  certain- 
ly did  not  arise  from  any  discouragement  in  Dickens's 
manner,  for  he  was  always  genial  and  friendly,  seemed 
naturally  inclined  to  welcome  and  encourage  young 
men,  and  I  had  heard  many  stories  from  companions 
in  journalism  about  the  generous  interest  which  Dickens 
took  in  those  who  were  beginning  their  work  as  news- 
paper reporters  or  writers.  The  great  novelist  seemed 
to  make  it  a  part  of  his  work  to  discover  literary  talent 
in  rising  young  men  and  to  give  practical  help  to  its 
development.  When  he  started  Household  Words  he 
gathered  around  him  quite  a  school  of  men  who  were 
then  very  young,  and  most  of  whom  became  under  his 
fostering  care  successful  and  distinguished  writers. 
Most  of  them  have  passed  away  since  that  time,  but 
the  names  of  such  men  as  George  Augustus  Sala,  An- 
drew Halliday,  Edmund  Yates,  Wilkie  Collins,  and 
many  others  are  still  remembered.  John  Hollingshead, 
who  was  one  of  the  cleverest  and  best  writers  of  that 
school,  and  who  afterwards  turned  his  attention  almost 
altogether  to  theatrical  management,  is  still  living. 

Dickens  discovered  and  brought  out  the  lyrical  genius 

14 


CHARLES    DICKENS 

of  Adelaide  Anne  Procter,  daughter  of  Bryan  Waller 
Procter,  the  poet  who  disguised  his  identity  for  a  long 
time  under  the  assumed  name  of  Barry  Cornwall. 
Adelaide  Procter  sent  some  verses  to  Household  Words 
without  giving  her  real  name.  Dickens  read  them  and 
saw  at  once  that  they  had  high  poetic  promise  in  them, 
and  he  welcomed  the  young  writer  to  the  ranks  of  his 
contributors,  and  gave  her  ample  opportunity  of  proving 
her  capacity  before  he  came  to  know  of  her  relationship 
with  his  old  friend.  Of  course  the  prose  contributors 
to  Household  Words  got  into  the  habit,  unconsciously 
it  may  be,  of  forming  their  style  upon  that  of  their 
master,  and  thus  a  whole  school  of  writers  came  into 
existence  who  reproduced  the  Dickens  mannerisms  in 
unnumbered  magazines  and  newspapers.  I  can  well 
remember  hearing  the  editor  of  a  great  London  daily 
paper  making  humorous  complaint  that  he  could  not 
keep  the  imitations  of  Dickens  out  of  the  columns  of 
his  journal  when  his  staff  of  writers  had  to  do  the  work 
of  description.  If,  for  instance — so  he  went  on  to  de- 
clare— he  wanted  a  preliminary  account  of  the  prepara- 
tions being  made  for  some  great  London  procession  or 
other  public  ceremonial,  he  was  sure,  no  matter  whom 
he  trusted  with  the  work,  to  get  a  long  account  begin- 
ning with  "  Seats  everywhere.  Seats  outside  the  Abbey ; 
seats  inside  the  Abbey;  seats  in  Palace  Yard;  seats  in 
Piccadilly ;  seats  in  High  Holborn  " ;  and  so  on  through 
at  least  the  first  half-column  before  the  writer  con- 
descended to  come  down  to  anything  like  a  plain  and 
practical  account  of  the  operations  which  he  was  called 
upon  to  depict  in  prose.  The  same  editor  occasionally 
spoke  in  the  same  mood  of  the  increasing  proportion 
of  persons  with  whom  literature  meant  Dickens.  It 
was,  indeed,  almost  impossible  for  a  young  writer  at  that 
time  to  keep  himself  from  falling  into  an  imitation  of 

15 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  Dickens  strain,  even  though  he  were  profoundly 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  his  best  efforts  in  that  direc- 
tion could  be  nothing  better  than  a  grotesque  and  pitiful 
imitation  of  the  great  and  unique  original.  There  was 
a  sort  of  Dickens  language  which  people  unconsciously 
spoke  and  wrote  under  the  spell  of  the  master.  The 
fact  itself  was  but  another  tribute  to  the  genius  of 
Dickens,  and  may  help  us,  even,  still  to  understand 
how  wide  and  deep  was  the  influence  then  exercised  by 
the  spell  of  the  enchanter. 

The  contributors  to  Household  Words  and  to  All  the 
Year  Round,  the  periodical  which  Dickens  afterwards 
started  in  consequence  of  his  quarrel  with  his  publishers, 
were  not  all  by  any  means  mere  imitators  and  nothing 
else.  Men  likeWilkie  Collins,  Shirley  Brooks,  John  Hol- 
lingshead,  George  Sala,  and  many  others,  brought  out 
books  entirely  their  own,  and  made  a  mark  for  them- 
selves, although,  of  course,  no  one  among  them  could 
ever  have  won  for  himself  anything  like  such  a  place 
in  literature  as  that  to  which  Dickens  mounted  almost 
by  one  step.  I  should  say  it  was  always  the  desire  of 
Dickens  himself  to  find  out  the  real  and  individual 
gifts  of  his  regular  contributors,  and  to  encourage  each 
one  of  them  to  the  development  of  his  own  peculiar 
qualities  and  to  the  avoidance  of  mere  imitation. 

Dickens's  readings  were  as  original  and  peculiar  in 
their  style  as  Dickens's  writings.  I  have  never  heard 
any  public  reader  who  could  display  a  dramatic  vivid- 
ness, variety,  and  power  such  as  Dickens  could  show  at 
all  times  and  without  any  apparent  effort  when  he  read 
to  some  great  audience.  It  really  was  not  mere  reading 
— it  was  the  impersonation,  or  rather  the  calling  into 
life,  of  each  character  whose  words  he  spoke.  It  ran 
through  all  the  moods  of  human  feeling,  was  high 
tragedy  or  broad  comedy,  pathetic  appeal  or  exalted 

16 


CHARLES    DICKENS 

contemplation,  according  as  the  subject  gave  opportu- 
nity, and  yet  it  was  never  in  any  sense  mere  stage- 
play.  Dickens  had  a  voice  of  marvellous  compass, 
depth,  and  variety  of  tone ;  some  of  its  chords  were  per- 
fect music;  and  although  he  had  often  to  pass  in  a 
moment  from  the  extreme  of  one  mood  to  the  extreme 
of  another,  there  was  never  the  slightest  strain  or  effort 
or  struggle  after  effect ;  all  seemed  to  come  with  perfect 
ease  from  the  instinct  and  the  inspiration  of  the  man. 
I  remember  well  that  there  were  some  daring  critics  at 
the  time,  even  among  the  most  devoted  admirers  of 
Dickens,  who  ventured  to  challenge  the  common  verdict 
of  absolute  approval  as  to  Dickens's  manner  of  illus- 
trating this  or  that  character  in  his  readings.  For  in- 
stance, there  were  those  among  us  who  fearlessly  main- 
tained that  Dickens  had  not  done  full  justice  to  Sam 
Weller  in  his  manner  of  rendering  the  utterances  of 
that  remarkable  personage.  He  did  not  quite  bring  out, 
it  was  contended,  all  the  full  significance  of  this  or  that 
remark  made  by  Mr.  Weller  the  younger.  But  let  us 
think  for  a  moment  what  a  tribute  this  was  in  itself 
to  the  genius  of  the  author  and  the  powers  of  the  reader. 
All  the  disparaging  criticism  which  the  audacity  of 
such  critics  could  venture  upon  only  went  to  argue  that 
Dickens  had  created  for  us  a  living  character  of  such 
odd  and  various  humor  that  even  Dickens  himself  was 
not  quite  able  to  read  up  to  the  level  of  his  own  creation. 
We  used  to  dispute  over  the  point  as  if  it  were  some 
great  question  of  faith  or  politics,  and  I  remember  well 
that  I  wondered  much  at  the  time  whether  Dickens 
himself  would  not  regard  the  criticism  as  only  a  new 
and  splendid  tribute  to  his  genius. 

Dickens  was  superb  as  an  after-dinner  speaker,  and 
was,  I  think,  the  greatest  master  of  that  modern  form 
of  eloquence  I  ever  remembered  to  have  heard.     But 
a  17 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

he  was  a  great  master  also  of  the  eloquence  which  be- 
longs to  the  public  platform,  and  proved  himself  so  on 
the  rare  occasions  when  he  took  a  leading  part  in  some 
popular  movement.  During  the  course  of  the  Crimean 
War  there  was  an  effort  made  to  get  up  a  great  agitation 
in  favor  of  administrative  reform,  with  the  view  of 
bringing  about  some  better  system  of  management  in  the 
War  departments  under  the  government.  It  was  some 
such  popular  movement  as  might  have  been  set  on  foot 
during  the  course  of  the  South  African  campaign,  for 
instance,  when  public  attention  had  been  directed  to 
cases  of  gross  maladministration  in  some  of  the  War 
Office  departments.  Dickens  threw  his  whole  soul  into 
the  enterprise,  and  in  the  speech  I  heard  him  deliver 
he  made  a  powerful  attack  on  the  weaknesses  of  the 
administrative  system  which  led  to  so  much  useless 
and  avoidable  waste  of  life  among  the  British  troops 
engaged  in  service  against  Russia.  He  touched  most 
effectively  every  note  of  feeling  in  his  thrilling  speech — 
the  indignant,  the  pathetic,  and  the  humorous — and 
every  touch  told  with  irresistible  effect  upon  the  crowded 
meeting.  He  was  especially  happy  in  his  allusion  to 
Lord  Palmerston  as  the  "  comic  old  gentleman  "  of  the 
administration,  and  the  phrase  lived  for  long  after  in 
the  current  speech  of  political  and  social  life. 

There  is  a  common  belief  that  Dickens  never  had 
any  inclination  for  a  parliamentary  career,  and  would 
not  have  listened  to  a  suggestion  inviting  him  to  become 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons.  We  know,  how- 
ever, from  some  of  Dickens's  published  letters  that  he 
had,  at  least  at  one  time,  a  strong  desire  to  offer  himself 
as  candidate  for  Parliament.  The  desire  soon  passed 
away,  and  none  of  his  admirers  can  feel  regret  that  it 
was  never  carried  into  action.  The  world  of  literature 
must  have  suffered  severe  loss  if  the  temporary  impulse 

18 


CHARLES    DICKENS 

had  found  satisfaction,  for  it  is  utterly  impossible  to 
imagine  Dickens  becoming  a  mere  casual  attendant  to 
his  parliamentary  duties  if  once  he  had  accepted  such 
responsibilities.  Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that 
Dickens  would  have  given  a  close  attention  to  any  work 
he  had  voluntarily  taken  upon  himself,  and  if  he  had 
consented  to  accept  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons 
he  would  unquestionably  have  given  to  his  parlia- 
mentary duties  much  of  the  valuable  time  which  the 
world  expected  him  to  devote  to  his  calling  as  a  writer 
of  novels.  The  House  of  Commons  would  have  gained 
a  brilliant  and  powerful  speech  now  and  then,  and  the 
reading  public  would  have  lost  much  of  delight  and  of 
instruction.  The  House  of  Commons  never  wanted 
for  men  who  could  make  eloquent  and  powerful  speeches 
in  great  parliamentary  debates,  but  for  the  world  out- 
side there  was  only  one  Charles  Dickens,  and  he  could 
not  be  spared  from  his  own  peculiar  and  appointed 
work.  He  accomplished  enough  as  a  public  speaker  to 
prove  the  marvellous  versatility  of  his  talents. 

I  cannot  call  to  mind  any  other  instance  of  a  really 
great  author  in  modern  times  who  displayed  such  a 
capacity  for  success  in  fields  of  competition  which  were 
not  especially  his  own.  He  might  have  been  a  great 
actor,  he  might  have  been  a  great  orator — he  made  proof 
of  this  over  and  over  again — and  he  was  in  more  in- 
stances than  one  a  thoroughly  successful  editor.  We 
owe  directly  to  him  the  creation  of  a  whole  school  of 
modern  periodical  literature,  and  we  know  that  he  was 
the  first  editor  of  the  Daily  News.  The  world  feels 
nothing  but  gratitude  to  him  for  the  steady  resolve  with 
which  he  kept  himself  mainly  to  his  work  and  did  not 
allow  himself  to  be  tempted  into  any  prolonged  ex- 
cursion from  it.  It  is  curious  to  observe  how  little  his 
style  as  a  novel  -  writer  owed  to  any  recollections  of 

19 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

other  men's  writings.  That  he  was  a  reader  of  books 
may  be  taken  as  certain,  but  I  can  only  call  to  mind 
at  the  moment  one  instance  in  which  he  pointed  his 
meaning  by  a  poetical  quotation.  The  novels  of  Walter 
Scott  are  studded  everywhere  by  such  citations;  they 
are  common  in  the  pages  of  Bulwer  Lytton  and  George 
Eliot;  and  many  of  Thackeray's  reflective  passages 
gleam  with  allusions  drawn  from  the  literature  of  va- 
rious countries  and  periods. 

The  one  poetic  quotation  in  a  novel  by  Dickens  to 
which  I  have  made  allusion  is  to  be  found  in  Martin 
Chuzzlewit,  and  is  taken  from  a  poem  written  by 
Thomas  Moore,  when  he  was  in  the  American 
States.  Moore  was  a  very  popular  author  even  among 
Englishmen  at  that  time,  and  it  may  be  remembered 
that  Mr.  Richard  Swiveller  indulges  in  several  reminis- 
cences of  the  Irish  minstrel's  lines.  But  I  am  con- 
cerning myself  at  present  only  with  the  passages  in 
which  Dickens  is  speaking  for  himself,  and  in  these, 
so  far  as  I  can  remember,  the  one  poetic  quotation  is 
from  Thomas  Moore.  Dickens  quotes  four  lines  in 
which  Moore  speaks  dismally  of  the  inborn  dangers 
threatening  the  young  American  republic.  But  for 
some  few  of  her  nobler  citizens  he  declares  that  "  Co- 
lumbia's days  were  done " ;  he  describes  her  growth 
as  "rank  without  ripeness,  quickened  without  sun"; 
and  augurs  that  only  for  these  guardians  of  her  true 
civilization  "her  fruits  would  fall  before  her  spring 
were  o'er."  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  Moore  and 
Dickens  in  their  different  days  came  to  be  filled  with 
such  gloomy  forebodings.  Each  man  was  overborne 
by  his  detestation  of  the  slavery  system  and  his  dread 
of  the  corrupting  effect  it  was  likely  to  have  on  the 
growth  of  American  civilization.  Neither  Moore  nor 
Dickens  quite  foresaw  the  turn  events  were  destined 

20 


CHARLES    DICKENS 

to  take  and  the  rising  of  that  great  antislavery  move- 
ment which  was  ordained  to  end  in  a  national  convul- 
sion and  in  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  corrupting 
system. 

We  must  all  admit  that  from  their  point  of  view 
Moore  and  Dickens  were  alike  in  the  right,  and  that  if 
the  slavery  system  had  not  been  crushed  by  a  great 
national  uprising  the  social  life  of  the  young  republic 
might  have  proved  but  an  unwholesome  growth.  It  is 
not  without  interest  that  Dickens's  one  poetical  quota- 
tion is  in  itself  another  tribute  to  his  love  for  humanity, 
and  to  the  same  spirit  in  the  poet  whose  lines  he  feels 
called  upon  to  cite  in  support  and  illustration  of  his 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  man's  freedom.  Even  those 
among  us  who  at  the  present  .day  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic  hold  a  full  faith  in  the  great  future  of  the 
American  republic,  even  those  who  like  myself  own  a 
love  for  America  only  second  to  the  love  for  their 
own  country,  and  who  cherish  the  most  delight- 
ful memories  of  its  people,  its  homes,  and  its 
scenery,  must  well  understand  the  sensations  of  dis- 
appointment and  pain  which  the  toleration  of  slavery 
aroused  at  one  time  in  men  like  Moore  and  Dickens. 
The  portrait  of  Dickens  in  this  chapter  seems  to  me 
to  picture  him  in  just  such  a  mood  of  melancholy  con- 
templation as  that  which  must  have  possessed  him  when 
he  introduced  into  the  pages  of  his  novel  that  mem- 
orable quotation  from  the  poem  by  Thomas  Moore. 


CHAPTER   III 

W.    M.    THACKERAY 

WE  cannot  think  long  over  Charles  Dickens  and  the 
place  he  held  in  English  literature  without  finding  our 
thoughts  turn  to  his  great  contemporary  and,  accord- 
ing to  common  acceptation,   his  great  rival    W    1L 
Thackeray.     There  was  at  one  time  a  school  of  Thack- 
eray and  a  school  of  Dickens.     Thackeray  was  born 
about  a  year  earlier  than  Dickens,  but  Dickens  made  his 
mark  in  the  Sketches  ly  Boz  some  four  years  before 
the   publication   of   Thackeray's   Paris   Sketch   Book 
Thackeray  was  becoming  known  to  readers  as  a  brilhan 
and  original  writer  of  magazine  articles  before  Dickens 
had  made  his  sudden  uprising  to  the  front  rank  in 
literature.     Dickens  must  have  still  been  a  reporter 
in  the  House  of  Commons  press-gallery  while  Inack- 
eray  was  beginning  to  make  a  certain  reputation  for 
himself   among  the  readers  of  magazines.     But   di< 
Thackeray  achieve,  even  by  his  first  published  book, 
anything  like  the   reputation   instantaneously   accom- 
plished by  Dickens  on  his  first  venture  in  the  form  of 
a  volume?     My  own  recollections  of  my  boyish  days 
make  it  clear  to  me  that  Dickens  was  recognized  as  a 
great  author  before  those  of  us  who  lived  far  away 
from  the  centre  of  England's  literary  life  had  come  to 
know  anything  about  the  rising  genius  of  Thackeray. 
I  can  even  remember  that  we  were  all  in  those  days  » 
completely  possessed  by  our  admiration  for 


W.  M.   THACKERAY 

as  to  feel  a  kind  of  resentment  when  we  read  in  London 
papers  that  a  new  man  was  coming  to  the  front  who 
threatened  a  possible  rivalry  with  the  author  of  Pick- 
wick and  Nicholas  Nickleby.  I  had  the  great  good 
fortune  at  a  later  period  of  meeting  both  men  several 
times  in  London  and  the  honor  of  some  slight  acquaint- 
anceship with  each  of  them.  My  life  holds  no  clearer 
memories  than  those  which  it  treasures  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray. 

In  appearance  and  manner  Thackeray  was  as  unlike 
Dickens  as  in  his  literary  style.  Thackeray  was  very 
tall,  standing  quite  six  feet  four  inches  in  height,  and 
was  built  with  a  broad  framework.  His  great,  massive 
head  and  expansive  forehead  were  crowned  with  a  cover- 
ing of  thick  and  prematurely  white  hair.  He  did  not 
live  to  be  what  we  should  now  call  an  elderly  man,  and 
the  first  time  I  ever  saw  him,  which  was  many  years  be- 
fore his  death,  his  hair  was  snowy  white.  He  always 
wore  spectacles,  and  his  eyes  never  gave  out  the  pene- 
trating flash-lights  which  Dickens  could  turn  upon 
those  around  him.  Thackeray's  manners  were  in  gen- 
eral quiet,  grave,  and  even  gentle,  and  his  most  humor- 
ous utterances,  which  were  as  frequent  as  they  were 
delightful,  had  an  air  of  restraint  about  them  as  if  the 
great  satirist  wished  rather  to  repress  than  to  indulge 
his  amusing  and  sarcastic  sallies  of  wit. 

The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Thackeray,  except  as  the 
solitary  figure  on  a  lecturer's  platform,  he  wore  a  thick 
mustache,  and  the  mustache  was  of  a  dark  color,  con- 
trasting oddly  with  his  white  locks.  That  first  sight 
of  him  thus  unusually  adorned  was  on  the  platform  of 
the  Lime  Street  Station,  Liverpool,  when  he  came  down 
from  London  to  go  on  board  the  Cunard  steamer  on  his 
way  to  deliver  his  course  of  lectures  in  the  United 
States.  There  were  a  few  small  groups  of  people  gather- 

23 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

ed  on  the  platform  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  great  author 
as  he  passed  out,  and  I  well  remember  that  one  enthusi- 
astic young  lady,  who  was  personally  quite  unknown 
to  him,  went  boldly  up  and  pressed  a  bunch  of  roses 
into  his  hand.  Nothing  could  be  more  graceful  and 
genial  than  the  manner  in  which  Thackeray  accepted 
this  unexpected  tribute,  and  took  off  his  hat  with  a 
benignant  smile  in  acknowledgment  of  the  gift.  I  know 
that  that  young  woman  was  made  happy  for  long  after 
by  the  memory  of  the  silent  welcome  which  was  accord- 
ed to  her  votive  offering. 

I  had  heard  most  of  Thackeray's  lectures  before  that 
time,  and  had,  like  all  his  hearers,  been  fascinated  by 
their  manner  as  well  as  by  their  matter.  Thackeray 
had,  indeed,  none  of  the  superbly  dramatic  style  of  de- 
livery which  made  Dickens's  readings  and  speeches  so 
impressive.  His  voice  was  clear  and  penetrating  and 
his  articulation  allowed  no  word  to  be  lost  upon  his 
listeners,  but  he  never  seemed  to  be  making  any  direct 
appeal  to  the  emotions  of  the  audience.  !N"o  accompani- 
ment of  gesture  set  off  his  quiet  intonation,  and  he  seem- 
ed, indeed,  to  be  talking  rather  at  than  to  the  crowd 
which  hung  upon  his  every  word.  He  did  not  act  his 
part  as  Dickens  did,  but  merely  recited  the  words  he 
had  to  give  out  as  one  might  have  done  who  was  simply 
expressing  his  own  thoughts  as  they  came,  without  any 
effort  to  arouse  the  susceptibilities  of  those  who  filled 
the  hall.  It  was  not  exactly  a  reading,  although  he  al- 
ways had  his  manuscript  laid  carefully  out  on  the  desk 
behind  which  he  stood,  for  he  only  glanced  at  the 
manuscript  every  now  and  then  to  refresh  his  memory, 
but  it  was  certainly  not  the  speech  of  an  orator  who 
appeals  with  impassioned  force  to  the  sympathies  of 
his  listeners,  and  it  was  not  in  the  slightest  degree  en- 
dowed with  dramatic  effect.  Even  when  his  audience 

24 


W.  M.   THACKERAY 

broke  into  irrepressible  applause,  at  some  passage  of 
especial  beauty  and  power  the  lecturer  did  not  seem 
to  gain  any  fresh  impulse  from  the  plaudits  which  broke 
forth,  but  went  on  to  his  next  sentence  with  the  same 
self-absorbed  composure  as  though  he  were  only  thinking 
aloud  and  were  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  listeners. 
None  the  less  the  very  manner  of  the  lecture  as  well  as 
its  literary  style  had  an  intense  fascination  for  all  who 
came  to  listen.  I  observed  on  many  occasions  that  the 
audience  seemed  to  become  possessed  by  a  common 
dread  lest  anything,  even  an  outburst  of  premature  ap- 
plause, should  interrupt  the  discourse  and  cause  a  word 
to  be  lost.  I  noticed  this  especially  in  some  of  the  more 
pathetic  passages,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  closing  sen- 
tences of  the  lecture  on  George  the  Third — that  marvel- 
lous description  of  the  blind,  deaf,  and  insane  old  king 
as  he  wandered  through  the  halls  of  his  palace  and  be- 
wailed to  himself  the  deplorable  conditions  of  his  clos- 
ing days.  The  most  studied  dramatic  effects  of  voice 
and  action  could  not  have  given  to  those  passages  of  the 
lecture  a  more  complete  and  absorbing  command  over 
the  feelings  of  the  listening  crowd.  Every  one  appear- 
ed to  hold  his  breath  in  fear  that  even  a  sound  of  ad- 
miration might  disturb  for  an  instant  the  calm  flow  of 
that  thrilling  discourse.  If  there  were  art  in  that  man- 
^  ner  of  delivery  it  was  assuredly  the  art  which  conceals 
x  art.  I  have  heard  many  great  orators  and  lecturers  in 
my  time  and  in  various  countries,  and  I  never  made 
one  of  an  audience  which  seemed  to  hang  upon  the 
words  of  the  speaker  more  absolutely  than  did  the  men 
^  and  women  to  whom  Thackeray  delivered  the  finest 
passages  of  his  many  lectures. 

I  can  well  remember  the  effect  which  was  wrought 
upon  the  public  mind  when  the  yellow-covered  monthly 
numbers  of  Vanity  Fair  first  began  to  make  their 

25 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE   SIXTIES 

appearance.     There  were  some  distinguished  literary 
men  in  England  who  had  long  entertained  the  belief 
that  if  Thackeray  were  to  devote  himself  to  the  novel- 
ist's work  he  would  prove  himself  a  rival  to  Charles 
Dickens.     Some  of  these  men  had  actually  expressed 
such  an  opinion  in  published  articles,  and  the  immediate 
effect  was  only  to  impress  the  general  body  of  readers 
with  the  idea  that  an  absurd  attempt  was  made  by  a 
small  group  of  admirers  to  start  a  sort  of  opposition 
to  the  great  author  who  up  to  that  time  had  held  an 
undisputed  sway  over  the  living  public.    Thus  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the   serial   issue  of   Vanity  Fair 
there  were  already  formed  two  sets  of  disputants  as  to 
the  merits  of  the  new  model.    By  far  the  larger  number 
was  made  up  of  those  who  were  disposed  to  regard  with 
indignation  anything  like  an  effort  to  make  too  much 
of  the  new  writer,  while  by  far  the  smaller  number  i 
the  full  conviction  that  a  great  new  literary  chapter  was 
opening  on  the  world,  and  that  Charles  Dickens  had 
found  his  rival  at  last.     Even  when  Vanity  Fair  had 
compelled  the  public  in  general  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  an  entirely  fresh  force  was  coming  up  in  novel- 
writing,  there  was  still  a  large  portion  of  readers  who 
resented  the  idea  that  any  one  could  come  into  rivalry 
with  Dickens,  and  who  felt  disposed,  out  of  sincere 
partisanship,  to  depreciate  Thackeray  because  of  what 
they  held  to  be  the  extravagant  admiration  of  those 
who  spoke  his  praises. 

I  only  allude  to  this  contest  of  opinion  as  an  interest 
ing  historical  fact  which  has  almost  faded  out  of  mem- 
ory at  the  present  day,  but  is  curious  and  interesting 
enough  to  be  brought  under  the  notice  of  the  present 
generation.  I  am  not  inclined  to  trouble  myself  much 
about  any  comparison  between  the  relative  places  m 
literature  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  I  have  an  intense 

26 


W.  M.   THACKERAY 

admiration  for  both  men;  I  regard  them  not  in  any 
sense  as  rival  forces,  but  as  the  creators  of  two  different 
forms  of  novel-writing,  and  I  see  no  necessity  for  en- 
deavoring to  exalt  the  one  by  depreciating  the  other. 
But  my  mind  still  retains  a  very  vivid  recollection  of  the 
ardent  discussions  which  used  to  go  on  in  those  days, 
and  of  the  rival  schools  of  admirers  then  formed  to 
carry  on  the  debate.  I  do  not  remember  anything  quite 
like  it  in  more  recent  years,  and  I  therefore  describe 
the  phenomenon  merely  as  a  matter  of  historical  inter- 
est without  the  slightest  wish  to  revive  that  futile,  fierce, 
and  wellnigh  forgotten  controversy. 

I  feel  no  regret  now  that  Thackeray  did  not  succeed 
in  his  one  attempt  to  obtain  a  seat  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  At  the  time  when  the  contest  took  place  I 
was,  of  course,  in  the  youthful  glow  of  my  ardent  ad- 
miration of  Thackeray,  an  intense  partisan  of  his  candi- 
dature, and  I  looked  upon  it  as  nothing  but  the  height 
of  audacity  on  the  part  of  his  opponent,  Edward  Card- 
well,  afterwards  Lord  Cardwell,  to  contest  the  seat 
against  such  a  man.  The  contest  took  place  in  1857 
and  the  constituency  was  the  city  of  Oxford.  In  after 
years  I  felt  nothing  but  satisfaction  that  Thackeray 
had  not  succeeded  in  his  unexpected  and,  as  one  can- 
not help  thinking,  uncongenial  ambition  to  become  a 
member  of  Parliament.  We  may  take  it  for  granted 
that  he  would  not  have  made  a  success  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  It  would  have  been  different  in  the  case 
of  Charles  Dickens  if  Dickens  had  succeeded  in  obtain- 
ing a  seat  there.  Dickens  would  unquestionably  have 
delivered  some  speeches  which  must  have  impressed 
and  delighted  all  the  occupants  of  the  green  benches  in 
the  representative  chamber.  He  was,  as  I  have  already 
said,  a  public  speaker  of  extraordinary  powers,  and  he 
would  assuredly  have  wakened  up  the  House,  even  in 

27 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

its  dullest  moods,  by  his  voice,  his  manner,  and  the 
happy  originality  of  his  illustrations  and  his  phrases. 
He  would  have  got  off  some  words  of  sarcastic  allusion 
to  his  opponents  in  debate  which  must  have  lived  long 
in  public  memory  and  passed  into  incessant  quotation. 
But  Thackeray  was  a  poor  speaker  whenever  he  at- 
tempted to  go  outside  the  range  of  his  prepared  lectures. 
He  never,  indeed,  made  a  speech  which  had  not  in  it 
some  telling  and  suggestive  sentences,  but  his  manner 
was  ineffective;  he  had  no  aptitude  for  public  debate; 
he  would  have  been  regarded  in  the  House  as  merely  a 
curiosity,  and  I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  the  author  of 
Vanity  Fair  submitting  himself  to  be  regarded  by  any 
assembly  as  a  mere  curiosity  and  out  of  his  place. 

I  can  well  remember  Alexander  Kinglake,  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  writers  of  his  time  or  of  any  time,  when 
he  had  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  occasionally 
took  part  in  a  debate.  The  general  impulse  of  listening 
members  was  to  ask  themselves  whether  this  ineffective 
and  labored  speaker  could  really  be  the  author  of  the 
famous  Eothen.  I  can  remember  that  another  writer 
of  books  which  were  immensely  popular  in  their  day, 
Thomas  Chandler  Haliburton,  the  author  of  Sam 
Slick,  when  he  was  in  the  House  made  a  very  poor 
figure  there,  and  was  once  turned  into  ridicule — fancy 
Sam  Slick  being  made  ridiculous — by  a  happy  sentence 
or  two  from  Mr.  Gladstone.  It  would,  indeed,  have  been 
a  subject  for  regret  to  all  lovers  of  literature  if  Thack- 
eray had  been  permitted  by  unkindly  fate  to  run  the 
risk  of  becoming,  as  I  feel  sure  he  must  have  done,  a 
mere  parliamentary  failure.  I  presume  that  Thackeray 
must  himself  have  felt  a  certain  sense  of  relief  when 
his  sudden  impulse  to  enter  the  House  of  Commons  was 
not  allowed  to  go  any  further  than  a  candidature  and  a 
minority  at  the  poll.  So  far  as  I  know  he  never  again 

28 


W.  M.  THACKERAY 

thought  of  making  an  attempt  in  the  same  direction. 
A  leading  article  in  the  Times  observed  after  the  result 
of  the  Oxford  contest  that  Thackeray  might  find  con- 
solation for  his  defeat  in  the  reflection  that  the  Houses 
of  Lords  and  Commons  put  together  could  not  have  pro- 
duced Barry  Lyndon  or  Vanity  Fair. 

I  am  far  from  countenancing  the  idea  that  men  of 
great  distinction  in  letters,  science,  or  arts  should  reso- 
lutely keep  themselves  aloof  from  parliamentary  life 
if  they  have  a  calling  that  way,  or  feel  that  there  is 
some  great  cause  to  be  advocated  towards  the  success 
of  which  they  are  especially  qualified  to  contribute.  I 
joined  in  the  general  rejoicing  which  filled  the  minds 
of  all  his  admirers  and  followers  when  John  Stuart 
Mill  consented  to  give  up  for  a  time  the  quietude  and 
retirement  of  his  thoughtful  life  and  accept  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  At  that  time  there  were  especial 
reasons  why  all  genuine  Liberals  and  lovers  of  political 
progress  felt  that  it  would  be  an  immense  advantage 
to  their  cause  if  Mill  were  to  present  himself  as  its 
advocate  and  its  expounder  in  the  great  political  assem- 
bly. Mill,  although  not  qualified  by  aptitude  or  train- 
ing to  become  a  great  parliamentary  debater,  was  yet 
able  to  impress  the  House  and  to  command  its  attention 
on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  took  part  in  its  debates, 
and  on  one  occasion  at  least  he  was  listened  to  with  pro- 
found and  breathless  interest.  But  then  Mill  was  a 
leading  advocate  on  many  important  public  questions, 
and  his  mere  presence  gave  a  new  strength  to  the  rising 
and  enlightened  minority  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Thackeray  had  never  taken  any  part  or  shown  much 
interest  in  political  controversy  and  could  not  have 
been  regarded  in  the  House  as  the  recognized  advocate 
of  any  political  doctrine.  It  would,  therefore,  have  been 
a  mere  throwing  away  of  his  literary  influence  if  he 

29 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

had  been  compelled  to  devote  any  considerable  part  of 
his  time  to  the  business  of  Parliament.  One  does  not 
want  to  think  of  Tennyson,  or  Robert  Browning,  or 
Richard  Owen,  or  Herbert  Spencer  as  a  mere  member 
of  a  political  party  in  the  House  of  Commons  delivering 
every  now  and  then  an  ineffective  speech,  spending  fu- 
tile hours  in  waiting  for  the  division  bell,  and  only 
tolerated  in  the  House  because  of  the  respect  men  felt 
for  the  work  he  had  done  and  the  success  he  had  accom- 
plished in  very  different  fields  of  intellectual  achieve- 
ment. From  the  few  speeches  which  Thackeray  de- 
livered during  the  Oxford  contest  one  does  not  obtain 
the  impression  that  he  would  have  been  a  steadfast 
champion  of  the  more  advanced  ideas  which  since  then 
have  become  recognized  principles  among  all  parties  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  Literature  might  have  lost 
much  and  political  life  could  have  gained  but  little 
if  Thackeray  had  abandoned,  though  only  for  a  time, 
his  yellow-covered  monthly  numbers  and  devoted  him- 
self to  the  study  of  parliamentary  blue-books. 

Thackeray  was  easy  of  access  in  private  life  to  all  at 
least  who  had  any  claims  upon  his  attention.  He  was 
one  of  the  principal  founders  of  the  Garrick  Club,  the 
object  of  which  was  to  bring  young  literary  men  into 
habitual  association  with  the  leaders  of  the  profession. 
The  foundation  of  the  Garrick  Club  was  the  cause  of  a 
literary  dispute  which  led  to  a  great  deal  of  public  dis- 
cussion at  the  time  and  something  like  an  animated 
controversy  in  literary  circles.  Thackeray  objected  to 
the  manner  in  which  one  member  of  the  club,  the  late 
Edmund  Yates,  was  in  the  habit  of  describing  its  social 
meetings  and  its  leading  men  in  some  of  the  newspapers 
to  which  he  was  a  contributor.  The  controversy  itself 
does  not  call  for  much  comment  now,  and  the  only  fact 
that  gave  it  any  biographical  interest  was  the  position 

30 


W.  M.  THACKERAY 

in  which,  for  the  moment,  it  placed  Dickens  and  Thack- 
eray as  the  leaders  of  opposing  sides.  I  do  not  intend 
to  enter  into  any  of  the  personal  questions  involved  in 
the  dispute,  and  I  only  introduce  the  subject  because 
it  illustrates  what  may  be  called  an  opening  chapter  in 
the  development  of  that  order  of  journalism  which  finds 
its  main  business  in  depicting  the  ways  and  manners  of 
social  life.  At  that  time  it  was  not  quite  understood 
that  such  distinguished  personages  are  not  supposed  to 
have  any  private  life  so  far  as  the  observation  of  the 
newspaper  correspondent  is  concerned.  Thackeray 
strongly  resented  the  descriptions  of  his  own  personal 
appearance  and  manners  which  were  printed  in  certain 
journals  and  were  known  to  be  the  work  of  Edmund 
Yates. 

Nobody  at  the  present  day  would  think  it  worth  his 
while  to  raise  an  objection,  sure  to  be  futile,  to  any  de- 
scriptions of  himself  or  comments  on  his  way  of  living 
in  the  London  or  provincial  newspapers.  It  is  now 
thoroughly  recognized  that  there  are  journals  which 
make  writing  of  this  kind  the  main  business  of  their 
existence,  and  are  read  all  the  more  by  the  public  ac- 
cording as  their  descriptions  are  more  and  more  inti- 
mate and  free.  Journalism  of  this  kind  has  long  been 
a  settled  institution  among  us.  Few  public  men  think 
about  it  at  all,  and  the  few  who  might  feel  inclined  to 
complain  of  it  are  perfectly  well  aware  that  open  com- 
plaint would  only  render  them  more  and  more  liable  to 
disparaging  comment,  and  that  no  combination  of  com- 
plaint could  be  of  any  avail  for  the  suppression  of  the 
practice  so  long  as  there  are  to  be  found  a  vast  number 
of  readers  who  delight  above  all  things  in  personalities 
and  gossip.  There  was  nothing  said  about  Thackeray 
in  the  newspaper  paragraphs  I  have  referred  to  which 
could  be  compared  for  freedom  of  speech  with  some  of 

31 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  personal  paragraphs  we  may  now  read  every  day  in 
London  newspapers  of  accredited  position.  But  at  the 
same  time  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  Thackeray  might 
well  be  excused  for  expressing  an  objection  to  the  prac- 
tice when  it  invaded  what  might  have  been  considered 
the  private  intercourse  of  a  literary  and  artistic  club. 
Thackeray's  main  purpose  in  helping  to  found  the  club 
was,  as  I  have  said,  to  bring  the  young  literary  and  ar- 
tistic beginner  into  habitual  association  with  the  leaders 
of  these  crafts,  and  it  may  have  seemed  to  him  hardly 
fair  that  a  member  of  this  private  association  should 
make  use  of  his  position  there  to  indulge  in  more  or 
less  satirical  accounts  of  those  whom  he  met  within  its 
walls.  No  such  controversy  could  have  arisen  in  our 
days,  but  I  am  not  quite  certain  whether  this  fact  in 
itself  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  evidence  of  an  improved 
tone  in  journalism  and  in  public  opinion. 

Thackeray's  was  a  familiar  figure  in  some  of  the 
London  streets,  and  no  one  who  had  ever  seen  him  or 
read  any  descriptions  of  him  could  fail  to  recognize 
that  tall,  swaying  form,  half  a  head  above  most  other 
pedestrians,  that  white  hair  and  those  eyes  that  beamed 
with  a  penetrating  light  even  through  the  spectacles. 
He  could  be  met  with  in  the  Strand,  or  Piccadilly,  or 
St.  James's  Street,  or  in  the  Temple  Gardens.  I  do  not 
remember  to  have  ever  met  him  in  the  vicinity  of  West- 
minster Palace  even  at  the  time  when  he  was  a  candi- 
date for  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons.  I  associate 
him  especially  with  the  Temple  Gardens  for  the  per- 
haps quite  insufficient  reason  that  my  first  sight  of  him 
in  London  was  in  those  historic  enclosures,  and  it  was 
there,  too,  that  I  saw  him  for  the  last  time  not  many 
days  before  his  death.  Thackeray's  figure  seems  to  me 
appropriately  associated  with  the  Temple  Gardens. 
There  are  many  allusions  to  them  in  some  of  his  books 

32 


W.  M.  THACKERAY 

which  one  always  loves  to  remember,  and  the  recollec- 
tions they  gather  around  them  from  history  and  ro- 
mance form  a  fit  setting  for  his  picturesque  figure.  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley  and  Will  Honeycomb  must  have 
loved  to  ramble  in  the  Temple  Gardens;  and  one  can- 
not help  thinking  that  the  age  of  Queen  Anne,  to  which 
Thackeray's  mind  always  turned  with  so  much  interest 
and  sympathy,  left  some  of  its  lights  and  shadows  over 
the  place. 

When  Thackeray's  library  was  sold  in  March,  1864, 
I  bought  his  volume  of  Smollett.  The  title-page  of  the 
book  describes  it  as  containing  "  The  Miscellaneous 
Works  of  Tobias  Smollett,  Complete  in  One  Volume." 
A  memoir  of  Smollett,  by  Thomas  Roscoe,  is  prefixed 
to  the  works,  and  the  volume  is  "  Printed  for  Henry 
Washbourne,  Salisbury  Square,  London,  1841."  I  need 
hardly  say  that  the  volume  is  a  precious  treasure  in  my 
household  and  an  object  of  intense  interest  to  my 
friends.  It  obtains  a  priceless  value  from  the  fact  that 
some  pencilled  notes  in  Thackeray's  own  handwriting 
are  scribbled  on  the  margins  of  two  or  three  pages.  The 
notes  are  written  in  a  faint  and  delicate  but  clear  and 
legible  hand.  I  quote  one  of  them  which  appears  on  a 
page  of  Humphrey  Clinker,  because  it  seems  pecul- 
iarly characteristic  of  the  writer :  "  As  Smollett  for- 
gave his  enemies  in  life,  he  made  amends  to  his  oppo- 
nents in  his  history;  in  this  he  compliments  Lyttelton, 
whom  he  had  lampooned." 


CHAPTER   IV 

THOMAS    CABLYLE ALFEED    TENNYSON 

IN  the  early  sixties  Thomas  Carlyle  was  commonly 
accepted  as  the  despotic  sovereign  of  thought.  Even 
those  who  remained  in  an  attitude  of  uncompromising 
resistance  to  his  sovereign  authority  could  not  deny  the 
extent  of  his  domination.  Those  of  us  who  did  not  fully 
acknowledge  his  rule  were  somewhat  in  the  position  of 
living  Russians  who  will  not  recognize  the  authority 
of  the  Czar,  but  do  not  pretend  to  deny  or  ignore  the 
fact  that  the  Czar  is  a  mighty  monarch.  There  were 
some  of  us  in  the  sixties  who  preferred  to  take  our 
thinking  from  John  Stuart  Mill,  for  instance,  but  we 
did  not  affect  to  deny  the  power  of  Carlyle,  and  we 
could  be  as  rapturous  as  his  own  professed  disciples 
in  our  admiration  for  many  of  his  writings.  Darwin's 
great  work  on  The  Origin  of  Species  had  but  recently 
been  published ;  the  philosophy  of  natural  selection  had 
not  yet  spread  its  influence  over  the  general  community ; 
and  the  teachings  of  Herbert  Spencer  had  not  reached 
the  ears  of  the  groundlings. 

Carlyle,  therefore,  as  the  leader  of  an  order  of  thought 
may  be  said  to  have  had  it  all  to  himself  even  among 
those  who  could  not  always  be  loyal  to  his  leadership.  I 
am  stating  a  mere  fact  and  not  designing  any  disparage- 
ment of  the  present  day's  intellectual  development  when 
I  say  that  there  is  no  man  just  now  who  has  anything 
like  the  influence  over  readers  and  thinkers  which  was 

34 


THOMAS  CARLYLE— ALFRED  TENNYSON 

exercised  in  the  sixties  by  Thomas  Carlyle.  That  influ- 
ence was  the  greater  because,  as  I  have  said,  it  met  with 
so  much  resistance.  We  sometimes  find  that  the  leaders 
of  certain  schools  in  thought  do  not  extend  their  influ- 
ence outside  the  limits  of  their  avowed  and  acknowl- 
edged pupils.  The  followers  of  the  one  school  accept 
to  the  full  the  doctrines  of  their  teacher  and  do  not 
trouble  themselves  about  the  doctrines  or  the  teacher 
of  any  other  school.  This  was  not  so  with  Carlyle. 
We  all  discussed  him,  followers  and  rebels  alike. 

When  I  think  of  Carlyle  himself — the  man  and  not 
his  books — I  always  think  of  him  as  a  moving  figure 
on  Cheyne  Walk,  Chelsea.  This  is  not  because  I  first 
saw  Carlyle  in  the  Chelsea  region,  but  because  my  recol- 
lection of  him  during  all  the  later  years  of  his  life 
brings  him  back  as  a  resident  of  Chelsea,  whose  form 
was  familiar  to  those  of  us  living  in  that  picturesque 
and  historic  quarter.  The  only  occasions  when  I  had 
the  good  fortune  to  be  in  his  company  are  associated 
with  friendships  formed  in  Chelsea.  I  had  but  few 
opportunities  of  being  in  Carlyle's  society,  and  my 
acquaintance  with  him  was  very  slight  indeed,  but  I 
must  always  retain  a  vivid  impression  of  his  manners 
and  his  conversation.  I  may  say  at  once  that  he  im- 
pressed me  rather  too  much  for  my  own  ease  and  com- 
fort. I  was  only  beginning  my  life  as  a  worker  in 
London  just  then,  and  I  was  naturally  shy  and  diffi- 
dent in  the  presence  of  a  man  whose  intellectual  great- 
ness I  so  thoroughly  recognized.  His  manner  seemed  to 
me  to  have  something  overpowering  in  it.  Whatever 
he  said  he  said  with  emphasis  and  with  earnest- 
ness, and  it  appeared  to  me  as  if  I  could  hardly 
summon  up  courage  enough  to  offer  any  opinion 
which  was  not  likely  to  commend  itself  to  his  ap- 
proval. I  felt  quite  sure  that  my  views  on  most  sub- 

35 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

jects  could  not  possibly  commend  themselves  to  him, 
and  yet  I  was  sometimes  beset  with  the  thought  that 
it  was  a  sort  of  cowardice  on  my  part  to  sit  and  listen 
to  his  laying  down  of  the  law  on  several  great  subjects 
without  venturing  to  interject  a  word  of  remonstrance. 
If  only  the  conversation  would  have  turned  on  Goethe 
or  on  Schiller,  or  even  on  Mirabeau  and  Robespierre, 
I  could  have  listened  forever  in  unfeigned  delight  and 
reverence,  and  might  have  had  no  occasion  to  utter  any 
words  but  those  of  modest  and  humble  agreement  and 
admiration.  But  it  unluckily  happened  that  just  about 
the  time  when  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Carlyle 
there  were  great  questions  stirring  the  world  on  which 
Carlyle  held  the  most  definite  opinions  one  way,  while 
I  could  not  help  holding  opinions  which  put  me  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  dispute. 

The  great  American  civil  war  was  then  going  on, 
and  Carlyle  was  ever  ready  to  give  judgment  against 
the  Northern  States.  I  was  at  that  time  one  of  the 
writers  for  the  Morning  Star,  the  daily  newspaper 
which  represented  the  views  of  Bright  and  Cobden,  and 
was  naturally  a  strenuous  and  consistent  advocate  of 
the  Northern  cause.  The  Daily  News  and  the  Morning 
Star  were  the  only  London  daily  papers  which  held 
firmly  to  that  side  during  the  whole  of  the  long  strug- 
gle. Carlyle,  in  a  short,  sharp  essay  of  his  called,  if 
I  remember  rightly,  "  The  American  Iliad  in  a  Nut- 
shell," which  appeared  in  one  of  the  magazines,  had 
summed  up  the  whole  controversy  to  his  own  complete 
satisfaction  as  merely  a  question  between  the  right  to 
hire  one's  servants  by  the  week  or  for  life.  Some  of 
us  still  persisted  in  thinking  that  servitude  enforced 
for  life  was  a  very  different  thing  from  servitude  hired 
by  the  week  or  by  the  month,  and  we  continued  to  regard 
slavery  just  as  we  had  done  before.  At  the  time  every 

36 


THOMAS    CARLYLE 

From    an   unfinished    Painting   &;/   Kir  John    E.    Millais,   in    the 
Rational  1'ortrait   Gallery 


THOMAS   CARLYLE— ALFRED  TENNYSON 

one  was  naturally  talking  of  the  American  war,  and  it 
was  not  pleasant  for  those  who  thought  as  I  did  to  draw 
out  Carlyle  on  the  great  question.  Nor  did  he  always 
wait  to  be  drawn  out,  for  he  frequently  expressed  his 
opinions  and  denounced  his  opponents  without  any  chal- 
lenge or  provocation  on  their  part.  Under  these  con- 
ditions it  will  readily  be  understood  that  an  obscure  and 
modest  young  man  who  did  not  happen  to  agree  with 
the  sentiments  of  the  orator  was  not  likely  to  find  him- 
self quite  comfortable  in  the  presence  of  Carlyle.  I 
did  not,  therefore,  seek  for  opportunities  of  possible  dis- 
pute, and  my  slight  acquaintanceship  with  him  soon 
came  to  an  end.  I  had  no  excuse  for  endeavoring  to 
press  myself  on  Carlyle's  notice  after  the  whole  question 
had  been  settled,  and  I  never  afterwards  saw  him  except 
when  I  happened  to  meet  him  in  the  highways  and  by- 
ways of  Chelsea.  But  I  still  hold  it  as  a  privilege  to 
have  been  admitted  to  his  society  even  on  the  few  and 
rare  occasions  which  I  have  described,  and  the  mere  fact 
that  I  did  actually  meet  him  and  listen  to  his  talk 
must  ever  be  one  of  my  cherished  memories. 

I  knew  intimately  many  of  his  friends,  and  I  knew 
from  them  how  little  the  whole  character  of  the  man 
could  be  judged  from  the  manner  in  which  he  sometimes 
loved  to  bear  down  all  opposition.  No  man  had  friends 
more  thoroughly  appreciative  of  him,  more  grateful 
for  his  friendship,  and  more  entirely  devoted  to  him. 
Some  of  those  friends  were  Americans  from  the  North- 
ern States,  avowed  and  complete  adherents  of  the  North- 
ern cause,  but  of  course  they  knew  the  man  well,  and 
were  not  affected  in  their  admiration  of  him  by  the 
fact  that  he  held  views  opposed  to  theirs  on  the  one 
great  question,  and  that  it  was  his  habit  to  express  his 
views  occasionally  without  overmuch  regard  for  the 
feelings  of  all  his  listeners.  His  presence  still  haunts 

37 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

that  Chelsea  quarter  for  me  whenever  I  find  myself  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  house  which  was  so  long  his 
home  and  must  forever  be  associated  with  his  fame. 

We  had  one  great  poet  in  those  days  of  the  sixties, 
and  his  name  was  Alfred  Tennyson.  Now  I  hasten  to 
rescue  myself  from  any  possible  mistake  on  the  part  of 
my  readers  by  announcing  at  once  that  we  were  quite 
aware  of  the  existence  of  other  poets  as  well.  Some 
of  us  had  lived  in  the  later  days  of  Wordsworth,  were 
devoted  admirers  of  his  poems,  and  had  passed  many 
times  before  his  home  in  the  Lake  country  with  the 
hope  of  getting  a  glimpse  of  the  poet  himself;  but 
Wordsworth  lay  buried  at  Grasmere  many  years  before 
the  sixties  set  in  and  Tennyson  had  succeeded  him 
as  Poet  Laureate — a  title  which  in  those  days  at  least 
was  understood  to  confer  upon  its  bearer  the  highest 
place  in  the  living  poetic  order.  Perhaps  I  may  also 
observe  in  vindication  of  the  early  sixties  that  we  were 
most  of  us  not  unfamiliar  with  the  works  of  a  poet 
named  Robert  Browning,  and  of  those  of  a  poetess 
named  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  who  died  at  the 
opening  of  the  period  which  I  am  now  recalling  to 
memory.  But  the  appreciation  of  the  Brownings  was 
as  yet  confined  to  the  few,  and  it  had  not  yet  become 
the  fashion  to  give  to  Robert  Browning  his  due  place 
in  the  foremost  order  of  English  poets.  Tennyson, 
therefore,  was  the  acknowledged  king  of  living  poets,  and 
it  did  not  occur  to  the  general  public  to  admit  any  rival 
to  the  throne. 

My  first  sight  of  Tennyson  was  obtained  under  very 
striking  and  appropriate  conditions.  It  was  during 
the  visit  paid  by  Garibaldi  to  London  in  1864,  and  I  was 
one  of  those  who  were  invited  by  the  hospitality  of  the 
late  Mr.  Seeley,  a  member  of  Parliament,  with  whom 
Garibaldi  was  then  staying  at  his  home  in  the  Isle  of 

38 


THOMAS  CARLYLE— ALFRED  TENNYSON 

Wight,  to  meet  the  Italian  visitor.  There  were  many 
Englishmen  of  great  distinction  there,  and  Tennyson 
was  the  most  conspicuous  among  the  guests.  Tennyson's 
appearance  was  very  striking,  and  his  figure  might 
have  been  taken  as  a  living  illustration  of  romantic 
poetry.  He  was  tall  and  stately,  wore  a  great  mass  of 
thick,  long  hair — long  hair  was  then  still  worn  even  by 
men  who  did  not  affect  originality  —  his  frame  was 
slightly  stooping,  his  shoulders  were  bent  as  if  with  the 
weight  of  thought ;  there  was  something  entirely  out  of 
the  common  and  very  commanding  in  his  whole  pres- 
ence, and  a  stranger  meeting  him  in  whatever  crowd 
would  probably  have  assumed  at  once  that  he  must  be 
a  literary  king.  I  met  him  several  times  after  that, 
although  I  never  came  to  have  the  honor  of  a  close 
acquaintance  with  him.  I  saw  him  once,  and  once  only, 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  occupied  a  place  in  the 
seats  which  are  known  as  "  under  the  gallery,"  and  are 
reserved  for  members  of  the  House  and  for  distin- 
guished strangers.  His  appearance  there  attracted  the 
attention  of  every  member,  and  I  do  not  think  that 
so  long  as  he  remained  any  close  interest  was  taken  in 
the  debate  then  going  on. 

Though  I  never  had  much  acquaintance  with  Tenny- 
son, it  is  something  to  have  met  him  occasionally,  to 
have  heard  him  talk,  and  to  have  exchanged  a  few 
words  with  him  now  and  then.  His  manner  was  sin- 
gularly impressive,  and  a  stranger  might  sometimes 
have  thought  that  there  was  a  half-conscious  display  of 
lyrical  authority  about  him.  There  was  a  certain  ec- 
centricity in  his  ways  and  his  manner  of  expressing 
himself,  and  one  could  never  tell  how  he  might  suddenly 
bear  down  upon  the  subject  which  happened  to  be  the 
topic  of  conversation  and  compel  the  company  to  give 
up  all  idea  but  that  of  listening  in  eager  silence  for 

39 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

anything  he  might  happen  to  say.  Those  who  knew 
him  well  knew  that  there  was  no  artificiality  about  him, 
and  that  the  simplicity  of  genius  was  at  the  heart  of  his 
mystery.  I  met  many  of  his  intimate  friends,  and 
heard  from  them  that  he  was  a  most  delightful  host 
and  a  congenial  companion.  He  loved  to  enter  into 
discussions  on  poetry,  and  would  sometimes  recite  pas- 
sages from  his  own  poems  with  natural  and  incom- 
parable effect.  When  he  happened  to  be  in  London  he 
was  a  familiar  figure  in  some  of  the  quieter  recesses 
of  the  parks,  more  especially  of  St.  James's  Park,  and 
nobody  to  whom  he  was  personally  unknown  could  have 
passed  him  without  turning  to  look  back  upon  him  and 
without  taking  it  for  granted  that  he  must  be  a  man 
of  distinction  and  importance.  Those  who  knew  him 
only  by  sight  and  happened  thus  to  meet  him  were 
sure  to  tell  their  friends  that  they  had  just  seen  Tenny- 
son in  the  park. 

In  ordinary  society  Tennyson  seldom  spoke  unless 
when  he  had  something  to  say  which  he  felt  inspired  to 
utter,  and  then  the  company  listened  as  if  he  were 
some  monarch  delivering  a  speech  from  the  throne. 
Now  and  then  he  disappointed  his  host  and  the  rest 
of  the  company  by  indulging  in  long  intervals  of  ab- 
solute silence  until  some  sudden  thought  suggested 
itself  to  his  mind,  and  then  he  came  out  with  a  burst 
of  natural  eloquence.  I  have  read  many  anecdotes  of 
his  spending  a  whole  evening  alone  with  some  honored 
guest,  and  of  the  host  and  guest  sitting  and  smoking  in 
silence,  each  finding  companionship  enough  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  other  and  the  interchanging  clouds  of  smoke, 
without  needing  any  spoken  utterances  to  express  their 
sense  of  good-fellowship.  One  such  anecdote  is  told  of 
Tennyson  and  Carlyle,  but  I  must  own  that  I  have 
never  been  able  quite  to  realize  the  idea  of  Carlyle  thus 

40 


LOBO  TENNYSON 


THOMAS  CARLYLE— ALFRED  TENNYSON 

submitting  himself  to  unbroken  silence.  There  was 
evidently  in  Tennyson  a  certain  shyness  which  held  him 
back  from  ordinary  conversation,  and  it  is  possible  that 
among  his  intimate  friends  he  felt  at  liberty  to  indulge 
to  the  full  his  humor  of  silence  whenever  the  humor 
took  him.  I  have  heard,  on  the  other  hand,  many 
accounts  of  his  delightful  adaptability  to  the  ways  of 
those  who  happened  to  be  with  him,  of  the  pleasure 
he  took  in  making  young  women  feel  quite  at  home 
with  him,  and  in  drawing  them  out  on  whatever  hap- 
pened to  be  their  own  familiar  topics.  But  I  think  he 
must  sometimes  have  felt  the  poetic  dignity  accorded  to 
him  an  oppressive  influence,  and  must  occasionally 
have  envied  those  commonplace  persons  who  were  liable 
to  be  interrupted  in  the  flow  of  their  conversation.  Cer- 
tainly wherever  Tennyson  went  in  the  social  world  he 
was  sure  to  be  regarded  as  the  most  conspicuous  and 
commanding  figure  in  the  company.  There  might  have 
been  a  prime-minister  present;  there  might  have  been 
a  great  parliamentary  orator;  there  might  have  been 
a  foreign  diplomatist  accustomed  to  rule  in  state  affairs ; 
there  might  have  been  an  archbishop  or  two;  there 
might  have  been  a  soldier  who  had  led  great  armies 
and  won  victories  on  the  battle-field — but  Tennyson  at 
that  time  was  always  Tennyson,  and  everybody  else 
was  a  secondary  figure.  I  do  not  know  that  in  the 
present  day  we  have  any  poet  or  scholar,  or  leader  in 
art,  science,  or  literature,  who  holds  the  sovereign  place 
which  in  the  sixties  was  accorded  to  the  author  of 
"  Locksley  Hall."  I  have  often  in  later  years  been  led 
to  make  comparison  between  the  position  accorded  by 
every  one  to  Tennyson  and  that  given  to  Robert  Brown- 
ing, even  among  Browning's  most  devoted  admirers. 
Browning  was  a  thorough  man  of  the  world  in  the 
best  and  happiest  sense.  He  enjoyed  society  and  un- 

41 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

affectedly  welcomed  the  companionship  of  his  friends 
and  of  those  whom  his  friends  introduced  to  him.  He 
was  a  brilliant  talker,  and  could  talk  with  ease  to  every 
one.  1  had  the  honor  of  knowing  him  well,  and  loved 
him,  as  all  did  who  knew  him.  But  he  never  attempt- 
ed to  hold  the  place  of  literary  monarch  among  men 
and  women,  and  without  any  effort  on  his  part  he 
prevailed  upon  us  all  to  think  that  we  were,  for  the 
time  at  least,  among  his  peers.  There  was  nothing 
eccentric  about  him,  and  we  came  to  accept  him  as 
one  of  ourselves  who  happened  also  to  be  a  great 
poet. 

So  far  as  I  can  remember  there  was  no  proclaimed 
anti-Tennysonian  school.  No  rival  to  Tennyson  was 
set  up.  There  was  always  an  anti-Byronian  sect,  and 
in  much  more  .recent  times  there  was  a  school  of  indig- 
nant anti-Swinburnians.  But  even  among  those  who 
were  most  strongly  opposed  to  some  of  Tennyson's  ut- 
terances on  certain  public  questions,  when  the  Poet 
Laureate  felt  himself  drawn  into  utterances  on  such 
questions,  there  was  no  impulse  to  rebellion  against 
his  poetical  supremacy.  At  one  period  English  society 
was  divided  into  two  hostile  camps  on  the  subject  of 
the  methods  which  had  been  used  to  suppress  the  sup- 
posed rebellion  in  Jamaica,  and  when  Tennyson  took 
up  the  championship  of  Governor  Eyre  there  was  a  cry 
of  lamentation  and  of  anger  sent  forth  by  many  even 
among  his  most  devoted  admirers.  A  satirical  ballad  was 
published  at  the  time  in  one  of  the  London  daily  news- 
papers concerning  the  views  which  Tennyson  main- 
tained with  regard  to  the  sudden  condemnation  and 
execution  of  Gordon,  who  was  accused  of  having  fo- 
mented the  supposed  rebellion.  Chief-Justice  Cock- 
burn,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  denounced  this  execu- 
tion as  an  act  committed  in  defiance  of  all  law  and  all 

42 


THOMAS  CARLYLE— ALFRED  TENNYSON 

evidence.  The  satirical  ballad  took  the  form  of  a  parody 
on  Tennyson's  touching  poem,  which  begins  with  the 
line: 

"  Home  they  brought  her  warrior  dead." 

The  satirical  balladist  thus  began  his  verses : 

"  Home  came  news  of  Gordon  dead, 

But  the  poet  gare  no  sigh. 
Mill  and  Bright  indignant  said 
'Twas  a  crime  that  he  should  die." 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  have  forgotten  the  lines  which 
followed,  and  do  not  even  remember  how  the  parody 
worked  itself  out  and  what  was  its  climax.  It  had  a 
certain  run  at  the  time  among  those  who  upheld  the 
views  of  Chief-Justice  Cockburn,  but  even  those  who 
quoted  it  and  cordially  welcomed  it  were  not  driven 
into  any  overt  act  of  rebellion  against  the  supremacy 
of  Tennyson  the  poet.  We  were  sorry  that  such  a  man 
should  have  taken  up  that  side  of  the  controversy,  and 
we  much  wished  that  he  had  let  the  whole  matter  alone, 
but  we  did  not  feel  the  faintest  desire  to  question  his 
right  to  regal  state  among  England's  living  poets. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Alfred  Tennyson  was,  like  the 
first,  an  imposing  and  unique  occasion.  That  last  time 
was  on  the  day  when  Tennyson,  just  endowed  with  a 
peerage,  was  formally  introduced  to  the  House  of 
Lords.  I  watched  the  ceremonial  from  the  bar  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  the  place  where  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  are  privileged  to  stand.  The  whole  cere- 
monial is  a  severe  trial  for  the  nerves  and  the  com- 
posure of  even  the  most  self-possessed  and  most  self- 
satisfied  among  newly  created  peers.  The  new-comer 
wears  for  the  first  time  his  robes  of  state,  and  these 
robes  make  a  garb  in  which  it  is  hardly  possible  for  any 

43 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

novice  not  to  appear  somewhat  ridiculous.  The  new 
peer  is  formally  conducted  by  two  of  his  brother  peers 
into  the  House  of  Lords,  is  presented  with  due  cere- 
mony to  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  other  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  House,  and  has  to  make  many  genuflections 
and  go  through  many  forms  which  bear,  to  irreverent 
eyes,  a  suggestion  of  theatricality  and  masquerade.  I 
must  say  that  Tennyson  comported  himself  with  mod- 
esty and  dignity  throughout  the  whole  of  this  peculiar 
ordeal,  and  the  general  feeling  was  that  even  if  the 
performance  had  been  carefully  rehearsed,  which  we 
assume  it  certainly  was  not,  Lord  Tennyson  could  not 
more  successfully  have  got  through  his  part  in  the 
dramatic  exhibition.  I  am  not  disposed  to  enter  into 
the  question  whether  it  is  the  most  appropriate  tribute 
to  the  genius  of  a  great  poet  that  he  should  be  created 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Lords.  But  it  is  something 
to  remember  that  when  England's  great  poet  thus  re- 
ceived a  state  recognition  he  should  have  shown  himself 
equal  to  the  occasion  and  should  not  have  broken  down 
into  awkwardness  under  the  unusual  robes  and  made 
the  grand  ceremonial  seem  needlessly  ridiculous.  It 
is  something  certainly  for  me  to  remember  that  I  was 
one  of  those  who  beheld  the  introduction  of  Alfred 
Tennyson  to  his  place  in  the  House  of  Lords. 


CHAPTER  V 

RICHARD    OWEN THE    BROTHERS    NEWMAN 

THE  great  struggle  between  two  rival  schools  of  scien- 
tific thought  may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  the  six- 
ties. Richard  Owen  represented  what  was  called  the 
older  school,  the  orthodox  school,  while  men  like  Charles 
Robert  Darwin  and  Thomas  Huxley  were  the  leading 
apostles  of  the  new  school.  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species 
by  Means  of  Natural  Selection  had  been  given  to  the 
world  in  1859,  and  the  controversy  was  thus  fairly 
opened  for  the  sixties.  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  upon 
any  task  so  superfluous  as  that  of  describing  the  con- 
troversy which  formally  opened  a  new  era  in  the  history 
of  scientific  development.  My  object  at  present  is  noth- 
ing more  ambitious  than  to  accompany  the  portrait  of 
Richard  Owen  by  some  personal  recollections  of  the 
great  man  himself.  I  have  one  relic  of  Richard  Owen 
which  I  especially  desire  to  bring  under  the  notice  of 
those  who  read  this  volume.  That  relic  is  the  perora- 
tion of  one  of  Owen's  lectures.  The  peroration  is  writ- 
ten out  in  Owen's  own  hand  and  is  the  only  part  of  the 
long  discourse  which  was  thus  written.  The  accompany- 
ing facsimile  will  put  it  almost  as  much  in  the  posses- 
sion of  my  readers  as  the  actual  pages  of  writing  are  in 
my  own  possession. 

Richard  Owen  was  one  of  the  most  effective  public 
lecturers  to  whom  I  have  ever  listened.  His  presence 
was  stately  and  effective,  while  at  the  same  time  he 

45 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

showed  no  consciousness  of  personal  stateliness   and 
there  seemed  in  him  no  striving  after  effect.     His  face 
was  expressive,  his  eyes  were  luminous  with  meaning, 
sincerity,  and  a  desire  to  come  into  complete  under- 
standing and  sympathy  with  whose  whom  he  address- 
ed.    The  most  difficult  questions  of  anatomical  science 
were  made  intelligible  by  the  simplicity  and  clearness 
of  his  language,  by  the  unadorned  precision  of  his 
style,  and  by  his  faculty  of  addressing  himself  directly 
to  the  comprehension  of  his  audience.     His  discourse 
never  passed  over  the  heads  of  his  listeners ;  the  listen- 
ers were  taken  along  with  him  and  were  carried  away 
by  what  might  fairly  be  described  as  his  unadorned 
eloquence.    It  was  on  the  occasion  of  a  lecture  deliver- 
ed by  him  in  Liverpool,  where  I  had  been  living  for 
some  years  before  the  sixties  set  in,  that  I  had  the 
opportunity  of  obtaining  from  him  the  valuable  manu- 
script reproduced  for  the  illumination  of  this  chapter. 
It  was  as  one  of  the  reporting  staff  attached  to  a  Liver- 
pool daily  newspaper— the  first  daily  newspaper  set 
up  in  an  English  provincial  town — that  I  found  my 
opportunity.    Owen  spoke  the  greater  part,  and  indeed 
nearly  the  whole,  of  his  address  without  reference  to 
manuscript  or  to  notes  of  any  kind.     But  I  observed, 
while  he  was  speaking  the  concluding  sentences  of  his 
address,  that  he  had  a  page  of  paper  before  him  both 
sides  of  which  were  covered  with  manuscript,  at  which 
he  glanced  from  time  to  time.     More  than  one  great 
speaker  to  whom  I  have  listened  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons and  outside  it  had  the  habit  of  writing  out  some 
particular  passages  in  a  speech  in  order  that  no  sen- 
tence and  no  word  might  fail  of  its  due  effect,  might 
be  inadequate  to  express  its  precise  meaning. 

I  was  then  a  very  young  man  and  had  the  audacity 
of  youth  to  support  me,  and  I  ventured,  when  the  lect- 

46 


RICHABD   OWEN 


RICHARD   OWEN— BROTHERS    NEWMAN 

lire  was  over,  to  ask  the  great  lecturer  to  allow  me  to 
take  possession  of  the  sheet  of  paper  which  contained 
his  written  words.  Owen  was  most  kindly  and  gracious, 
appeared  to  be  pleased  by  the  boldness  of  my  request, 
and  made  me  the  owner  of  this  inestimable  sheet  of 
autograph  composition.  He  was  even  more  gracious 
than  this,  for  he  kindly  invited  me  to  call  upon  him  dur- 
ing his  stay  in  Liverpool,  and  I  need  hardly  say  that 
I  gladly  availed  myself  of  this  unexpected  invitation. 
I  went  to  see  him  next  day,  was  received  with  courtesy 
and  kindness,  and  was,  in  fact,  encouraged  to  consider 
myself  as  one  of  his  personal  acquaintances.  At  a 
later  period,  when  I  had  settled  in  London,  I  had  the 
happy  chance  of  meeting  him  occasionally  while  he  was 
engaged  in  his  work  at  the  British  Museum,  and  I 
never  met  him  without  being  impressed  more  and  more 
by  the  unaffected  sweetness  of  his  manners  and  by  the 
readiness  with  which  he  seemed  to  tolerate  my  obvious 
admiration.  Owen  was  undoubtedly  a  great  man,  was 
probably  the  greatest  scientific  anatomist  since  Cuvier ; 
but,  like  many  other  great  men,  and  unlike  some,  he 
assumed  no  airs  of  greatness  and  was  ready  to  put  him- 
self for  the  time  into  full  companionship  with  those 
who  were  admitted  to  his  society.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  evidences  he  gave  me  of  his  willingness  to  keep  up 
the  acquaintance,  and  I  remember  with  a  peculiar  sense 
of  gratification  that  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  continued  to 
send  me,  now  and  then,  printed  copies  of  some  discourse 
which  he  had  delivered,  or  some  work  in  pamphlet  form 
which  he  had  published. 

At  that  time  Owen  was  commonly  regarded  as  the 
leader  of  the  old  school  of  scientific  philosophy.  The 
old  school  and  the  new  school  fought  out  their  battles 
just  then  with  energy,  and  sometimes,  it  must  be  al- 
lowed, with  considerable  acrimony.  But  Owen  at  least 

4? 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

was  not  very  acrimonious  in  his  part  of  the  controversy, 
and  he  took  the  assaults  of  his  opponents  with  remark- 
able composure.  The  public  in  general  divided  itself 
between  the  two  schools  and  followed  the  teachings  of 
the  leaders  on  either  side  with  deep  and  sometimes 
impassioned  interest.  I  do  not  know  whether  at  the  pres- 
ent time  there  are  any  two  such  schools  of  scientific 
philosophy,  and  can  only  say  that  if  any  such  contro- 
versy now  goes  on  its  echoes  do  not  reach  my  sequestered 
ears.  Perhaps  the  older  school  died  out  with  the  life 
of  Richard  Owen  and  the  whole  controversy  with  the 
lives  of  such  great  controversialists  as  Huxley  and  Tyn- 
dall.  Perhaps  the  older  school  has  vanished  altogether 
from  the  living  history  of  scientific  dispute.  Both 
schools  professed  to  found  themselves  on  actual  scien- 
tific facts,  but  the  older  school  assumed  the  principle 
that  all  new  discoveries  must  be  in  accordance  with 
established  and  orthodox  faith,  while  the  new  school 
proclaimed  that  the  discovery  of  scientific  truths  must 
be  followed  out  with  no  regard  to  the  consequences  to 
accepted  revelation.  The  new  school  acted  no  doubt, 
whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  on  the  general 
principle  laid  down  by  Auguste  Comte,  who  had  de- 
fined the  growth  of  human  thought  as  destined  to  pass 
through  the  stages  of  the  mythical,  the  metaphysical, 
and  the  scientific. 

I  had  the  honor  in  later  days  of  becoming  acquainted 
with  Thomas  Huxley  and  having  many  opportunities 
of  meeting  him  and  conversing  on  all  manner  of  sub- 
jects. I  am  now,  however,  only  dealing  with  the  early 
sixties  and  with  Richard  Owen,  and  I  did  not  believe 
myself  at  that  or  after  endowed  with  sufficient  knowl- 
edge of  scientific  questions  and  evidences  to  entitle 
me  to  form  any  very  clear  opinion  as  to  the  general 
bearings  of  the  controversy.  I  admired  Richard  Owen 

48 


-5 


J 


fa 


FACSIMILE   OF   OWEN'S   MS. 


[Sec  perf/c  4G 


RICHARD    OWEN— BROTHERS    NEWMAN 

then,  as  I  afterwards  came  to  admire  Thomas  Huxley, 
for  his  splendid  intellectual  gifts,  for  his  genial  man- 
ners, and  for  his  extraordinary  powers  of  eloquent  ex- 
position. The  impression  then  made  upon  me  by 
Richard  Owen  has  never  faded.  He  was  the  first  great 
scientific  man  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  know  person- 
ally, and  my  acquaintance  with  him  formed  an  epoch 
at  the  opening  of  my  literary  career  which  must  always 
live  in  my  recollection.  Huxley  and  Tyndall  were  both 
eager  controversialists  even  on  questions  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  scientific  development,  and  each  of 
them  went  out  of  his  way  now  and  then  to  advocate 
some  political  or  social  cause  which  was  arousing  deep 
emotion  throughout  the  whole  country. 

I  do  not  remember  that  Owen  ever  allowed  himself 
to  become  involved  in  any  public  debate  which  was  not 
directly  associated  with  his  own  sphere  of  strictly  scien- 
tific study.  Owen  kept  himself  to  his  minute  study  of 
physical  organization,  and  he  took  the  facts  as  he  found 
them,  but  he  evidently  reconciled  them  with  his  great 
faith  in  the  organizing  Cause.  He  seems  to  put  this 
forth  in  the  concluding  sentences  of  the  peroration  re- 
produced in  this  chapter.  "  Everywhere,"  he  says,  "  in 
organic  nature  we  see  the  means  not  only  subservient 
to  an  end,  but  that  end  accomplished  by  the  simplest 
means.  Hence  we  are  compelled  to  regard  the  great 
Cause  of  all  not,  like  certain  philosophic  ancients,  as  a 
uniform  and  quiescent  mind — as  an  all-pervading 
anima  mundi — but  as  an  active  and  anticipative  intelli- 
gence. By  applying  the  laws  of  comparative  anatomy 
to  the  relics  of  extinct  races  of  animals  found  in  differ- 
ent strata  of  the  earth's  crust,  and  corresponding  with 
as  many  epochs  in  the  earth's  history,  we  make  an  im- 
portant step  in  advance  of  all  preceding  philosophies, 
and  are  able  to  demonstrate  that  the  same  active  and 
4  49 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

beneficent  intelligence  which  manifests  His  Power  in 
our  times  has  also  manifested  His  Power  in  times  long 
anterior  to  the  records  of  our  existence."  "  If,"  he 
goes  on  to  say,  "  I  have  succeeded  in  demonstrating  the 
adaptation  of  each  varying  form  to  the  exigencies  and 
habits  and  well-being  of  the  species,  I  have  fulfilled 
one  object  I  had  in  view — viz.,  to  set  forth  the  intelli- 
gence and  beneficence  of  the  Creative  Power.  So  far 
as  I  have  shown  the  uniformity  of  plan  pervading  the 
osteological  structure  of  so  many  diversified  animated 
forms,  I  must  have  enforced,  were  that  necessary,  as 
strong  a  conviction  of  the  unity  of  the  Creative  Cause." 
And  thus  he  declares  "  we  must  be  the  more  strikingly 
impressed  with  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of  that 
Cause." 

I  have  said  in  a  preceding  chapter  that  I  must  al- 
ways associate  the  memory  of  Thomas  Carlyle  with  the 
streets  of  Chelsea.  In  the  same  way  I  must  ever  associ- 
ate the  figure  of  Richard  Owen  with  the  neighborhood 
of  the  British  Museum,  with  that  region  where  he  ac- 
complished so  much  of  his  great  work  and  where  it  was 
often  my  good  fortune  to  meet  him  in  days  long  gone 
by,  which  can  never  pass  from  my  recollection. 

I  have  heard  many  interesting  accounts  from  friends 
in  London  of  the  great  kindness  which  Richard  Owen 
was  in  the  habit  of  showing  to  children,  and  of  the  ex- 
quisite sympathy  with  which  he  could  enter  into  all 
their  ways  and  draw  them  into  unrestrained  converse 
with  him.  Only  the  other  day  a  friend  of  mine  was 
telling  me  that  in  her  childish  years  she  and  her 
brothers  and  sisters  were  brought  into  acquaintanceship 
with  Richard  Owen  when  they  were  at  school  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  British  Museum,  and  she  gave  me 
many  instances  of  his  kindness  to  them,  and  mentioned 
the  fact  that  when  sometimes  they  met  him  in  the  street 

50 


RICHARD  OWEN— BROTHERS  NEWMAN 

and  he  appeared  to  be  wrapped  in  profound  contempla- 
tion, they  thought  it  right  to  pass  on  without  disturbing 
him,  but  that  he  was  sure  to  see  them  and  would  stop 
in  his  walk,  enter  into  conversation  with  them,  and 
even  turn  out  of  his  way  to  escort  them  to  their  home. 
The  anecdote  came  out  unexpectedly,  and  was  only 
occasioned  by  some  talk  about  the  interest  which  many 
great  men,  who  seem  to  live  above  the  clouds  of  common 
life,  have  taken  in  the  companionship  of  children.  I 
had  not  happened  for  a  long  time  to  hear  any  one  speak 
of  Owen,  and  her  reminiscences  of  him  were  a  new  and 
a  welcome  contribution  to  my  own  impressions  of  his 
sweet  and  winning  nature.  I  think  that  feeling  of 
companionship  with  ordinary  humanity  pervaded  all 
Owen's  teachings  and  suffused  his  conceptions  of  the 
Eternal  Cause.  William  Blake,  the  painter,  poet,  and 
mystical  dreamer,  has  declared  that  "  the  Eternal  is  in 
love  with  the  productions  of  Time."  There  would  not 
seem  to  be  much  affinity  between  the  character  and 
studies  of  Richard  Owen  and  those  of  Blake,  but  I  have 
often  thought  that  the  words  I  have  just  quoted  might 
be  taken  as  a  brief  embodiment  of  the  spirit  that 
breathes  through  that  passage  of  Owen's  discourse  re- 
produced in  this  chapter. 

Among  the  portraits  from  the  sixties  about  and 
around  which  I  am  writing  in  this  volume  is  one  of 
Cardinal  Newman.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  in  the 
grouping  of  these  portraits  there  might  be  a  certain 
appropriateness  in  setting  the  pictures  of  Owen  and  of 
Newman,  metaphorically  at  least,  side  by  side.  The  two 
men  had,  indeed,  very  different  spheres  of  thought  and 
action,  but  each  was  alike  devoted  to  what  he  believed 
to  be  his  supreme  mission  in  life,  and  each  lived  above 
the  clouds  of  ordinary  and  worldly  existence.  Cardinal 
Newman's  was  a  life  of  absolute  austerity,  but  there 

51 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

was  a  certain  sweet  simplicity  in  his  manner  which  re- 
minded me  sometimes  of  Richard  Owen.  My  personal 
acquaintance  with  Cardinal  Newman  was  very  slight, 
but  I  had  many  opportunities  of  listening  to  him  and 
of  observing  his  bearing  and  his  ways.  I  saw  him  for 
the  first  time  before  the  opening  of  the  sixties.  While 
I  was  living  in  Liverpool,  just  before  the  Crimean  War, 
Newman  delivered  there  his  famous  series  of  lectures 
on  what  was  then  regarded  as  the  Eastern  Question,  the 
existence  of  the  Ottoman  power  in  Europe.  There  is 
no  need  to  go  very  deeply  into  that  question  at  the 
present  time  of  day;  we  must  all  of  us  have  made  up 
our  minds  long  ago  on  the  whole  subject,  whatever  our 
conclusions  may  happen  to  be.  I  need  only  say  that 
Newman's  views  might  have  been  regarded  just  then 
as  a  prophetic  protest  against  the  policy  which  was 
leading  to  the  Crimean  War.  Newman  regarded  the 
settlement  of  the  Ottoman  Turk  in  Europe  as,  from  first 
to  last,  a  mere  calamity  to  Christian  civilization.  A 
man  of  Newman's  character  and  training  could  not 
make  himself  the  advocate  of  any  policy  designed  to 
expel  the  Turks  by  force  from  the  European  territories 
they  had  occupied,  but  he  made  himself  the  earnest  and 
uncompromising  opponent  of  any  policy  setting  itself 
to  maintain  and  strengthen  the  ill-fated  dominion  of 
the  Ottoman  power.  Newman's  expositions  and  warn- 
ings had,  it  is  needless  to  say,  no  effect  whatever  on  the 
majority  of  Englishmen  at  the  time,  but  he  uttered  no 
warning  which  subsequent  events  did  not  fully  and 
strictly  justify.  The  lectures  were  singularly  impres- 
sive, although  they  made  no  pretension  to  the  graces 
and  the  thrilling  tones  of  eloquence.  The  language 
seemed  unstudied,  but  was  always  exquisitely  chosen, 
every  word  expressing  precisely  the  idea  it  was  intended 
to  convey,  and  no  more,  and  there  were  many  passages 

52 


RICHARD  OWEN— BROTHERS    NEWMAN 

which  lived  long  in  the  memories  of  those  who  heard 
them  spoken.  The  lectures  were  delivered  with  perfect 
ease,  and  the  voice,  although  not  powerful,  could  make 
itself  heard  without  effort  in  any  ordinary  assembly. 
It  had  certain  tones  of  melancholy  reflectiveness  which 
seemed  appropriate  to  a  warning  only  too  certain  to  be 
made,  for  the  time  at  least,  in  vain. 

No  man  was  a  more  accomplished  master  than  New- 
man of  all  the  resources  the  English  language  can  com- 
mand. I  heard  him  speak  and  preach  on  many  later 
occasions,  and  he  always  seemed  to  me  to  have  a  certain 
distinct  faculty  of  eloquence  which  has  nothing  to  do 
with  mere  rhetoric,  but  is  sincere  and  lofty  thought  em- 
bodied in  the  most  appropriate  form  of  phrase.  In 
some  of  the  arts  and  the  gifts  that  go  to  make  a  great 
orator  or  preacher,  Newman  was  strikingly  deficient. 
His  bearing  was  not  impressive;  his  gaunt,  emaciated 
figure,  his  sharp  eagle-face,  his  eyes  of  quiet  meditation, 
were  rather  likely  to  repel  than  to  attract  those  who 
heard  and  saw  him  for  the  first  time.  But  the  matter 
of  his  discourse,  whether  sermon,  speech,  or  lecture,  was 
always  captivating,  and  if  the  language  had  any  defect 
it  might  be  that  it  was  perhaps  a  little  overweighted 
with  thought,  and  thus  might  seem  hardly  suited  to 
attract  from  the  beginning  a  popular  audience.  But  in 
speaking,  as  in  writing,  he  soon  made  it  evident  that  he 
was  an  influence — I  do  not  know  how  better  to  express 
my  meaning — which  must  command  attention  by  its 
own  force.  Both  as  a  speaker  and  as  a  writer  he  show- 
ed himself  richly  endowed  with  a  keen,  pungent,  satiri- 
cal humor,  while  there  was,  on  the  other  hand,  a  subtle 
vein  of  poetry  and  of  pathos  suffusing  all  his  argument, 
his  illustration,  and  his  appeal. 

Newman's  brother  Francis  was  led  away,  as  most 
of  my  readers  will  remember,  into  a  field  of  thought 

53 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

and  activity  strangely  unlike  that  into  which  faith  and 
destiny  had  conducted  him  who  was  to  become  a 
cardinal  and  a  leading  spirit  in  the  Church  of  Rome. 
I  cannot  think  of  the  brothers  Newman  without  recall- 
ing to  memory  a  deeply  interesting  passage  in  Thack- 
eray's Pendennis.  Arthur  Pendennis  and  his  comrade 
George  Warrington  have  a  dispute  about  men  and  be- 
liefs. "  The  truth,"  Pendennis  asks — "  where  is  the 
truth?  Show  it  me.  I  see  it  on  both  sides.  I  see  it 
in  this  man  who  worships  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and 
is  rewarded  with  a  silk  apron  and  five  thousand  a  year ; 
in  that  man,  too,  who,  driven  fatally  by  the  remorse- 
less logic  of  his  creed,  gives  up  everything — friends, 
fame,  dearest  ties,  closest  vanities,  the  respect  of  an 
army  of  churchmen,  the  recognized  position  of  a  leader 
— and  passes  over,  truth-impelled,  to  the  enemy  in 
whose  ranks  he  is  ready  to  serve  henceforth  as  a  name- 
less private  soldier ;  I  see  the  truth  in  that  man  as  I  do 
in  his  brother,  whose  logic  drives  him  to  quite  a  dif- 
ferent conclusion,  and  who,  after  having  passed  a  life 
in  vain  endeavors  to  reconcile  an  irreconcilable  book, 
flings  it  at  last  down  in  despair,  and  declares,  with 
tearful  eyes  and  hands  up  to  heaven,  his  revolt  and  re- 
cantation." Of  course  every  reader  of  Pendennis  knew 
at  the  time  when  the  book  was  published  who  were  the 
two  brothers  of  whom  this  touching  description  was 
given.  Pendennis  made  its  appearance  in  volume  form 
some  ten  years  before  the  period  which  the  portraits 
in  this  book  are  intended  to  illustrate.  But  the  parting 
of  the  two  brothers  only  grew  wider  and  wider  as  time 
went  on,  and  they  never  can  be  said  to  have  worked 
together  during  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

About  the  time  with  which  this  book  opens  I  became 
acquainted  with  Francis  Newman  and  was  brought 
much  more  into  intercourse  with  him  than  it  was  ever 

54 


RICHARD    OWEN— BROTHERS    NEWMAN 

mj  fortune  to  be  with  the  great  Cardinal.  The  reason 
for  this  was  that  John  Henry  Newman  kept,  as  a  rule, 
quite  apart  from  political  movements,  and  that  Francis 
Newman  took  an  active  share  in  the  conduct  of  many 
political  organizations.  I  was  then  beginning  to  be 
much  engaged  in  English  political  life  as  well  as  in 
journalism,  and  I  thus  had  many  opportunities  of  meet- 
ing with  Francis  Newman.  He  was  a  man  of  great  in- 
tellect and  of  very  noble  purpose,  but  he  never  acquired 
in  his  own  sphere  anything  like  the  influence  his  brother 
exercised  in  the  sphere  to  which  his  conscientious  con- 
victions had  called  him.  I  am  sure  my  readers  will 
quite  understand  that  I  am  not  now  entering  into  any 
comparison  or  contrast  of  these  two  far-divided  spheres. 
With  questions  of  religious  faith  these  chapters  have 
nothing  to  do.  My  endeavor  is  to  put  myself  for  the 
time  into  the  position  of  Arthur  Pendennis,  and  to  re- 
gard the  two  brothers  as  equally  sincere  followers  of 
that  which  each  believed  to  be  the  truth.  But  I  have 
always  thought  that  Francis  Newman,  while  acting 
with  the  most  sincere  and  unselfish  motives,  never  suc- 
ceeded in  accomplishing  as  much  by  his  intellect  and  his 
perseverance  as  might  have  been  expected  from  one  so 
richly  endowed  with  noble  qualities  of  mind  and  heart. 
Francis  Newman  lent  his  best  energy  to  the  support 
of  many  a  great  political  cause  which  time  and  events 
have  since  proved  to  be  right,  in  the  judgment  of  most 
thinking  men  at  home  and  abroad.  But  unquestionably 
he  sometimes  wasted  too  much  of  his  intellectual  ca- 
pacity on  what  might  be  called  the  eccentricities  of 
political  and  social  endeavor.  There  were  all  manner 
of  new  questions,  political  and  social  problems  as  they 
would  now  be  called,  coming  up  at  the  time,  and 
Francis  Newman  did  not  always  seem  able  to  distin- 
guish between  a  creed  and  a  crotchet.  The  mere  charm 

55 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

of  novelty  appeared  to  have  an  undue  fascination  for 
him.  He  was  tempted  too  often  into  the  frittering  away 
of  his  remarkable  intellectual  powers  over  some  new 
idea,  as  it  was  called,  which  turned  out  to  be  merely 
an  old  and  exploded  idea,  recalled  to  a  semblance  of 
cohesion  and  reality  by  the  futile  energies  of  some  sect 
or  group  of  belated  reformers.  There  was  a  time  when 
nine  out  of  ten  men  in  London  who  took  any  interest 
in  public  affairs  were  apt  to  set  down  Francis  Newman 
as  hopelessly  given  over  to  crotchets,  while  the  tenth 
man,  admiring  however  much  his  character  and  his 
capacity,  was  sometimes  grieved  and  sometimes  angry 
that  both  together  did  not  make  him  a  greater  power  in 
the  national  life. 

The  last  time  I  ever  heard  Francis  Newman  address 
a  public  meeting  was  at  a  small  gathering  of  men  and 
women  in  London  who  were  engaged  in  organizing 
an  opposition  to  some  measure  before  Parliament,  the 
purpose  of  which  has  long  passed  out  of  my  memory. 
The  meeting  was  held  in  Exeter  Hall,  not  in  the  vast 
room  where  oratorios  were  performed  and  huge  public 
assemblages  are  gathered  together  to  discuss  some  ques- 
tion of  national  or  international  importance,  but  in  a 
little,  subterranean  room.  The  attendance  was  not  near- 
ly up  to  the  size  of  the  room  itself,  limited  though  that 
was.  There  on  the  platform  sat  the  good  and  gifted 
and  fearless  Francis  Newman,  and  immediately  around 
him  were  some  dozen  embodied  and  living  crotchets  and 
crazes.  There  was  this  learned  physician  who  had 
renounced  his  medical  practice  and  was  holding  com- 
munication regularly  with  the  spirit-world.  There  was 
that  other  eminent  personage  who  had  long  been  trying 
in  vain  to  teach  an  apathetic  government  how  to  cure 
crime  on  purely  phrenological  principles.  There  was 
Smith,  who  was  opposed  to  all  wars ;  Brown,  who  firmly 

56 


RICHARD   OWEN— BROTHERS   NEWMAN 

believed  that  every  disease  known  to  poor  humanity 
came  from  the  use  of  salt;  Jones,  who  had  at  his  own 
expense  put  into  circulation  thousands  of  copies  of  his 
work  against  the  employment  of  medical  men  in  cases 
where  the  ailments  of  women  were  concerned.  We 
just  wanted,  on  this  memorable  occasion,  the  awful 
persons  who  proved  to  you  that  the  earth  was  all  a  flat, 
and  the  indefatigable  ladies  who  expounded  their  claims 
to  the  British  crown,  then  feloniously  usurped  'by  Queen 
Victoria. 

Nothing  came  of  the  demonstration,  whatever  it  was, 
and  I  have  only  mentioned  it  here  just  to  illustrate  the 
extraordinary  contrast  between  the  commanding  posi- 
tion to  which  Francis  Newman,  with  his  intellect,  his 
energy,  and  his  lofty  purposes,  might  have  attained, 
and  the  position  to  which  from  the  highest  and  most 
unselfish  motives  he  had  allowed  himself  to  descend. 
I  could  not  help  admiring  the  man,  as  much  in  these 
later  days  of  his  career  as  in  that  earlier  time  when  he 
stood  forth  the  great  and  recognized  advocate  of  so 
many  a  noble  cause.  Surely  the  parting  of  the  ways 
had  brought  these  two  gifted  brothers  very  far  apart. 
John  Henry  Newman  had  by  this  time  become  a  prince 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  was  one  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous and,  in  the  strictest  sense,  one  of  the  most 
influential  men  of  his  age.  Yet  every  one  who  knew  the 
two  brothers  must  nave  known  that  mere  personal  am- 
bition had  influenced  no  more  the  one,  who  had  ob- 
tained so  lofty  and  commanding  a  position,  than  the 
other,  who  had  fallen  away  from  public  life  and  become 
merely  the  futile  advocate  of  so  many  a  lost  and 
unimportant  cause.  Both  brothers  had  eminently  the 
genius  of  the  controversialist,  both  followed  alike 
faithfully  the  light  of  the  guiding  star  which  his  con- 
science recognized,  and  it  is  something  of  comfort  to 

57 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

feel  sure  that  both  will  alike  have  a  place  of  honor  in 
the  history  of  England's  intellectual  development. 

May  I  be  allowed  to  say  that  I  think  Cardinal  New- 
man did  much  good  even  to  that  Church  from  which 
he  withdrew?  He  was  really  the  main-spring  of  that 
movement  which  proposed  to  rescue  the  Church  from 
apathy,  from  mere  quiescence,  from  the  perfunctory 
discharge  of  formal  duties,  and  to  quicken  her  once 
again  with  the  spirit  of  a  priesthood,  to  arouse  her 
to  the  living  work,  spiritual  and  moral,  physical  and 
mental,  of  her  ecclesiastical  mission.  Throughout  the 
English  Church  in  general  there  has  been  surely  a 
higher  spirit  of  work  since  that  famous  Oxford  Move- 
ment, in  which  John  Henry  Newman  took  so  influential 
a  part.  I  think  the  influence  of  that  English  Church 
has  been  more  active,  more  beneficent,  more  human, 
and  at  the  same  time  more  spiritual  since  that  sudden 
and  startling  impulse  was  given.  The  story  of  these 
two  brothers  is,  on  the  whole,  as  strange  a  chapter  as 
any  I  know  in  the  history  of  human  intellect  and  creed. 
It  may  at  least  teach  us  a  lesson  of  toleration,  if  nothing 
better.  The  very  pride  of  intellect  itself  can  hardly 
pretend  to  look  down  with  mere  scorn  upon  beliefs 
which  carried  off  in  contrary  directions  these  two  New- 
mans. The  sternest  bigot  could  hardly  refuse  to  admit 
that  truthfulness,  self-sacrifice,  and  devotion  might 
abide  outside  the  limits  of  his  own  creed  when  he 
remembered  the  high  and  noble  example  of  pure,  true, 
and  disinterested  lives  which  John  Henry  and  Francis 
W.  Newman  have  alike  given  in  their  different  ways 
to  their  fellow-men. 


CHAPTER   VI 

RICHAED    COBDEN 

THIS  volume  has  for  its  frontispiece  the  photographic 
reproduction  of  a  picture  which  has  not,  so  far  as  I 
know,  been  ever  before  thus  brought  to  the  notice  of  the 
public  at  large.  The  picture  represents  the  principal 
framers  of  the  famous  French  commercial  treaty  with 
England — the  treaty  brought  into  existence  in  1860 — 
seated  around  the  table  of  a  great  salon  —  a  picture 
drawn  from  the  imagination,  we  may  assume — and  the 
most  celebrated  figures  in  which  are  Cobden,  Michel 
Chevalier,  Bright,  Gladstone,  Palmerston,  Milner  Gibson, 
Persigny,  Fould,  and  many  other  of  the  eminent  public 
men  who  were  engaged  in  the  negotiations  which  led  to 
the  treaty.  The  present  chapter  contains  also  a  portrait 
group  of  Cobden,  Bright,  and  Milner  Gibson.  Even  at 
the  present  day  readers  will  remember  that  Milner  Gib- 
son was  one  of  Cobden's  most  earnest  and  capable  sup- 
porters in  the  early  English  struggle  for  free-trade. 
Thomas  Milner  Gibson  was  a  man  of  high  social  posi- 
tion, and  was  returned  to  Parliament  so  early  as  1837 
by  the  conservative  party,  to  which  he  then  belonged. 
He  soon,  however,  saw  reason  to  renounce  his  conserva- 
tive opinions,  and  on  one  memorable  occasion  he  boldly 
proclaimed  in  the  House  of  Commons  his  conversion 
to  the  liberal  doctrines,  and  he  actually  crossed  the 
floor  of  the  House  and  took  his  place  among  the  free- 
traders. In  1841  he  was  elected  from  Manchester  as  a 

59 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

free-trader,  and  from  that  time  forth  he  was,  during  the 
whole  of  his  public  career,  one  of  the  most  consistent, 
persuasive,  and  distinguished  champions  of  the  free- 
trade  cause  and  of  every  other  doctrine  of  genuine 
liberalism.  He  held  office  more  than  once  in  a  liberal 
government,  and  took  a  leading  part  in  the  repeal  of  the 
advertisement  duty  on  newspapers,  of  the  newspaper 
stamp-duty,  and  the  paper  duty  itself.  I  used  to  meet 
him  often  in  those  days,  and  I  felt  the  highest  admira- 
tion for  his  sincerity,  his  great  political  capacity,  his 
parliamentary  eloquence,  and  the  unaffected  geniality 
of  his  manners.  Cobden,  Bright,  Charles  Villiers,  and 
Milner  Gibson  were  the  apostles  of  free-trade,  and  may 
justly  be  said  to  have  created  a  new  chapter  in  English 
history.  So  far  back  as  1835  Cobden  had  published  his 
first  pamphlet  advocating  free-trade,  and  within  a  few 
years  the  Anti-Corn  Law  League  was  established  in 
Manchester,  with  Cobden  for  its  leading  member.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  afterwards  acknowledged  that  to  the  agita- 
tion carried  on  by  Cobden  and  the  League  was  due  the 
measure  for  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  which  Peel 
carried  in  1846.  Charles  Villiers,  a  member  of  the 
great  Clarendon  family,  had  been  elected  to  the  House 
of  Commons  for  Wolverhampton  as  a  declared  free- 
trader in  1835,  and  used  to  bring  forward  every  session 
a  motion  in  favor  of  free-trade  before  the  principle 
was  adopted  by  any  statesman  in  office.  When  Peel 
carried  his  measure  for  the  abolition  of  the  duty  on  the 
importation  of  foreign  corn  the  general  belief  prevail- 
ing all  over  the  country  was  that  the  question  of  free- 
trade  had  been  settled  forever  in  England. 

There  is  a  peculiar  appropriateness  in  the  repro- 
duction of  this  picture  of  the  three  great  free-trade 
apostles  at  the  present  time.  During  all  the  years 
which  intervened  between  1846  and  this  present 

60 


RICHARD    COBDEN 

year  nothing  was  heard  of  any  serious  purpose 
on  the  part  of  a  responsible  English  statesman  to 
introduce  a  financial  policy  which  could  in  any  sense 
be  held  to  repudiate  the  principle  of  free-trade.  There 
were  always  some  tory  members  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  some  old  -  fashioned  persons  here  and 
there  in  country  districts  who  cherished  a  sort  of  an- 
cestral and  feudal  homage  for  the  old  doctrine  of 
protection.  There  were  still  men  to  be  met  with  in 
and  out  of  Parliament  who  insisted,  with  an  almost 
touching  devotion  to  the  financial  creed  of  their  fore- 
fathers, that  no  matter  what  statistics  and  Board  of 
Trade  returns  and  parliamentary  blue  -  books  might 
say  to  the  contrary,  the  country  was  positively  going 
to  the  dogs  because  of  free-trade,  and  that  the  sun  of 
England's  prosperity  had  set  forever.  England  went 
on,  however,  perversely  prospering  in  spite  of  all  their 
protestations  and  predictions,  and  the  professed  pro- 
tectionist came  before  long  to  be  regarded  as  a  mere 
curiosity,  the  late  surviving  symbol  of  a  past  age.  No 
political  or  financial  organization  of  the  slightest  in- 
fluence attempted  during  all  these  years  to  bring  about 
a  reversal  of  England's  commercial  policy,  and  that  a 
statesman  in  office  should  ever  attempt  such  an  under- 
taking seemed  as  little  likely  as  that  a  statesman  in 
office  should  undertake  a  crusade  against  the  election  of 
members  to  Parliament  by  a  popular  majority.  It 
has  been  reserved  for  our  times  to  behold  the  appearance 
of  such  a  strange  and  unexpected  phenomenon.  We 
have  lately  heard  from  the  lips  of  a  statesman  holding 
high  office  the  proclamation  of  a  resolve  to  bring  up  the 
whole  question  once  again  for  national  judgment,  and 
to  invite  a  reversal  of  the  policy  originated  by  Cobden, 
Bright,  and  Villiers,  and  carried  into  legislation  by  Sir 
Ilobert  Peel. 

61 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  any  discussion  here 
as  to  the  principle  of  free-trade,  and  I  am  well  con- 
vinced that  so  far  as  England  is  concerned  that  question 
is  settled  forever.  Nor  do  I  intend  to  offer  any  argu- 
ments designed  to  show  that  the  doctrine  of  preferential 
tariffs  is  merely  another  form,  a  somewhat  diminished 
form,  of  the  doctrine  of  protection.  We  may  take  it 
for  granted  that  some  questions  .at  least  in  financial  as 
well  as  in  constitutional  policy  have  been  settled  once 
for  all.  There  need  be  no  fear  that  any  subtlety  of 
plausible  argument  will  ever  induce  England  to  return 
to  what  used  to  be  called  the  principle  of  divine  right 
in  government,  and  we  have  just  as  little  reason  to 
fear  that  any  such  argument  can  prevail  upon  her  to 
make  at  this  time  of  day  a  reactionary  experiment  in 
the  way  of  protective  tariffs.  There  is  a  fashionable 
and  self-opinionated  lady  in  one  of  Moliere's  comedies 
who  declares  that  she  never  could,  even  after  the  fullest 
consideration,  see  any  reason  why  a  woman  should  not 
change  her  husband  as  often  and  as  freely  as  she 
changed  her  undergarments;  but  the  lady  would  no 
doubt  have  admitted  that  with  all  her  influence  she 
was  never  able  to  get  her  theory  adopted  by  the  ruling 
powers  of  France.  In  the  world  of  fashion  it  might  be 
possible  for  some  ruling  queen  of  society  to  bring  about 
for  a  time  a  new  reign  of  the  crinoline,  but  we  do  not  re- 
constitute our  financial  system  at  the  mere  dictation 
of  some  adventurous  and  self-confident  member  of  a 
divided  government.  I  cannot  help  thinking  with  keen 
and  curious  interest  of  the  effect  which  might  have  been 
produced  on  that  triumvirate  of  English  free-traders 
if  it  could  have  been  foretold  to  them  that  before  very 
many  years  an  English  statesman,  who  had  during  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  professed  complete  devotion  to 
their  doctrine,  should  suddenly  come  forward  with  the 

62 


RICHARD    COBDEN 

proclamation  that  he  was  determined  to  lead  a  crusade 
against  the  principle  of  free-trade.  Each  of  the  three 
men,  Cobden,  Bright,  and  Villiers,  had  in  him  a  gen- 
uine faculty  of  humor,  and  I  can  imagine  any  one  of 
them  adopting  the  words  in  which  Scott's  Antiquary 
comments  on  the  pretensions  of  the  German  adventurer 
Dousterswivel  who  figures  in  the  novel.  Dousterswivel 
professes  to  have  magical  ways  of  discovering  buried 
treasure,  and  thus  enabling  people  at  a  small  pecuniary 
sacrifice  to  become  possessed  of  indefinite  and  ever- 
increasing  wealth.  The  Antiquary  declines  to  discuss 
the  question,  but  he  makes  an  appropriate  quotation 
from  our  great  Elizabethan  dramatist,  and  closes  with 
the  words — his  own  words — "  Ah !  rare  Ben  Jonson ! 
Long  peace  to  thy  ashes  for  a  scourge  of  the  quacks  of 
thy  day !  Who  expected  to  see  them  revive  in  our  own  ?" 
I  made,  for  the  first  time,  the  personal  acquaintance 
of  Richard  Cobden  when  he  was  conducting  the  negotia- 
tions for  a  commercial  treaty  between  England  and 
France.  That  was  not,  however,  the  first  time  I  came 
to  know  Cobden  as  a  public  man  and  a  public  speaker. 
I  had  heard  many  of  his  great  speeches  in  Manchester, 
in  Liverpool,  in  Rochdale,  and  other  places  before  I 
came  to  know  him  in  private.  That  was  a  remarkable 
and  a  peculiarly  interesting  period  of  modern  English 
history  when  I  first  made  Cobden's  personal  acquaint- 
ance. He  was  then  closely  engaged  with  the  prepara- 
tions for  the  treaty,  and  was  going  to  and  fro  between 
London  and  Paris,  between  the  English  government, 
for  whom  he  was  acting  as  unofficial  representative, 
and  Louis  Napoleon,  then  Emperor  of  the  French. 
Louis  Napoleon  was  at  the  zenith  of  his  power,  and  had 
succeeded  in  completely  dazzling  the  minds  of  most 
persons  in  England  as  well  as  in  France,  and  making 
them  believe  that  he  had  founded  an  imperial  system 

63 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

which  was  destined  to  have  the  control  of  France  dur- 
ing an  indefinite  time.  Many  of  those  who  had  op- 
posed his  dictatorship  in  France  were  exiles,  and  some 
of  them  were  settled  in  London.  One  of  these  was  my 
friend  Louis  Blanc,  who  was  not  able  to  return  to  his 
own  country  until  the  war  with  Prussia  had  led  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  empire  and  the  establishment  of  that 
republic  which  has  already  lasted  for  a  longer  time 
than  any  system  formed  in  France  since  the  outbreak 
of  the  great  Revolution. 

When  I  first  met  Cobden  he  had  as  his  colleague 
in  the  work  of  preparing  the  treaty  the  celebrated 
French  political  economist  and  statesman  Michel 
Chevalier,  who  was  acting  on  behalf  of  the  French 
government.  I  had  the  advantage  of  being  admitted 
to  some  of  their  conferences,  of  listening  to  the  views 
they  interchanged,  and  of  seeing  the  documents  they 
were  engaged  in  drawing  up.  I  could  not  help  thinking 
at  the  time  how  strange  it  was  to  remember  that  the 
last  great  attempt  to  establish  a  commercial  treaty 
between  England  and  France  was  the  work  inspired 
by  Bolingbroke,  a  man  whose  whole  character  was  as 
unlike  that  of  Richard  Cobden  or  Michel  Chevalier 
as  could  well  be  imagined.  There  was  nothing  showy, 
nothing  that  could  even  be  called  brilliant,  about  the 
style  and  the  achievements  of  Cobden  or  Chevalier. 
One  must  describe  Cobden  as  a  great  orator,  if  by  ora- 
tory we  mean  the  art  of  persuading,  of  convincing  large 
bodies  of  men,  whether  in  Parliament  or  outside  it. 
But  Cobden  did  not  belong  to  that  order  of  eloquence 
in  which  Bolingbroke  must  ever  be  remembered  as  one 
of  the  greatest  masters.  Oratory  has  been  defined  by 
Macaulay  as  the  blending  of  reason  and  passion,  and 
this  we  may  assume  to  be  a  perfect  description  of 
Bolingbroke's  brilliant  and  overwhelming  style.  Cob- 

64 


RICHARD    COBDEN 

den  made  no  appeal  to  the  passions  of  men,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  made  constant  appeal  to  those  higher 
and  nobler  feelings  with  which  Bolingbroke  never 
proved  himself  to  have  much  sympathy. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  Cob- 
den's  eloquence  only  addressed  itself  to  man's  reasoning 
faculties.  Cobden  accomplished  some  of  his  greatest 
effects  by  his  frequent  appeals  to  the  eternal  senti- 
ments of  equity  and  justice,  to  the  exalted  principles  of 
peace  among  nations  and  brotherhood  among  men.  He 
did  not  confine  his  arguments  in  favor  of  the  commercial 
treaty  to  mere  questions  of  tariff,  to  the  commercial  and 
individual  advantages  of  an  interchange  of  products 
on  convenient  terms,  and  to  the  individual  benefits 
which  must  come  from  a  treaty  enabling  each  nation 
to  have  cheap  possession  of  the  articles  produced  or 
manufactured  by  the  other.  He  preached  the  gospel 
of  universal  peace  and  friendship  while  illustrating  the 
benefits  of  unrestricted  commercial  intercourse.  He 
was  not  an  orator  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word. 
He  did  not  indulge  in  any  splendid  flashes  of  dazzling 
declamation.  There  are  few  passages  in  any  of  his 
speeches  likely  to  be  preserved  as  illustrations  of  the 
highest  effect  the  English  language  can  be  taught  to 
create.  There  are  few  sentences  to  be  found  in  his 
public  speeches  which  English  school-boys  would  be 
enjoined  to  get  by  heart  as  models  of  successful  decla- 
mation. His  style  had  little  in  it  that  could  even  be 
called  ornamental.  His  speeches  were  intended  to  con- 
vince the  reason  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  call  into 
activity  the  purest  and  the  noblest  feelings. 

I  have  heard  Cobden's  speeches  described,  even  by 

some  who  express  entire  admiration  for  them,  as  the 

utterances  of  a  man  who  is  merely  thinking  aloud 

while  he  holds  in  profound  attention  a  great,  listening 

»  65 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

assembly.  The  description  has  always  appeared  to  me 
curiously  inadequate.  In  the  House  of  Commons  and 
on  the  public  platform  Cobden  was  always  addressing 
himself  directly  to  those  whom  he  endeavored  to  per- 
suade, was  in  close  and  constant  touch  with  them. 
He  was  ready  to  reply  to  any  word  of  interruption 
which  suggested  an  opposition  to  his  argument,  and 
was  able  to  supply  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  any  gap 
in  his  process  of  reasoning  which  even  the  doubtful 
glances  of  his  listeners  might  remind  him  that  he  had 
left  unfilled.  Not  the  most  fluent  of  the  great  debaters 
in  the  House  of  Commons  was  more  quick  than  Cobden 
to  take  advantage  of  any  sceptical  or  hostile  interrup- 
tion by  turning  it  to  his  own  account,  and  pouring  forth 
upon  those  who  had  interrupted  him  some  new  or  fresh 
argument  or  illustration  intended  to  bear  down  upon 
the  suggested  criticism  or  dissent,  and  to  report  him  and 
his  cause  aright  to  the  unsatisfied.  Even  if  one  hap- 
pened to  have  no  particular  views  of  his  own  on  either 
side  of  the  actual  subject  under  discussion,  it  was  a 
positive  treat  to  listen  to  a  speech  of  Cobden's  in  the 
House  of  Commons  and  observe  the  unfailing  readiness 
with  which  he  could  bring  forth  new  arguments  in  sup- 
port of  his  pleading. 

Cobden  was  remarkably  fluent  as  a  speaker;  never 
seemed  to  want  a  word,  and,  what  was  better  still, 
never  seemed  to  want  the  precise  word  which  most 
strongly  and  lucidly  expressed  his  meaning.  His  voice 
was  not  great  in  volume — at  least  it  did  not  seem  so  to 
those  who  only  heard  him  addressing  an  assembly  of 
limited  extent,  such  as  that  which  he  had  to  address 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was  clear  and  liquid 
and  even,  and  seemed  admirably  adapted  in  its  compass 
to  a  full  effect  in  a  parliamentary  assembly.  But  it  had 
a  power  and  a  range  which  one  only  came  to  appreciate 

66 


RICHARD   COBDEN 

fully  when  he  heard  Cobden  speaking  from  the  platform 
of  some  great  open-air  meeting.  Then  the  listener  was 
filled  with  the  satisfying  conviction  that  Cobden  could 
make  himself  easily  and  thoroughly  heard  at  the  farthest 
limit  of  the  greatest  public  gallery.  I  have  listened  to 
speakers,  renowned  for  the  strength  and  volume  and 
range  of  their  voices,  who  could  not  have  succeeded 
more  completely  and  with  less  apparent  effort  in  holding 
the  attention  of  the  largest  crowd.  Not  one  of  these 
could  accomplish  with  less  suggestion  of  straining  a 
more  complete  mastery  over  his  audience  than  Cobden, 
whose  voice  was  never  regarded  as  one  of  his  especial 
oratorical  endowments. 

Every  one  knows  how  it  tries  an  audience  to  be  com- 
pelled to  make  a  continuous  effort  in  following  the  argu- 
ment of  a  speaker  whose  sentences  are  likely  to  lose  some 
part  of  their  meaning  by  an  occasional  failure  in  the 
reach  of  the  orator's  utterance.  A  certain  lack  of  atten- 
tion is  sure  to  follow  in  a  great  assembly,  especially  an 
open-air  assembly,  when  even  the  most  convincing  and 
rousing  appeal  is  thus  sometimes  marred  by  a  defective 
power  of  sustained  elocution.  No  one  ever  felt  any  of 
this  irritating  strain  when  listening  to  Cobden.  Every 
one  settled  down  to  the  comfortable  conviction  that  he 
had  only  to  listen  and  no  word  could  fail  to  reach  his 
ears.  Men  like  Gladstone,  like  Bright,  like  the  anti- 
slavery  orator  Wendell  Phillips,  had  magnificent  voices, 
which  were  able  to  command  any  assembly  by  the  mere 
charm  of  their  musical  intonation.  But  the  wonder  of 
Cobden's  voice  was  that  it  could  always  exercise  the 
same  command,  although  it  did  not  seem  to  be  endowed 
with  any  such  extraordinary  power.  His  voice  was  like 
his  eloquence,  which  had  nothing  in  it  showy,  nothing 
that  appealed  to  the  musical  sense,  but  could  always 
captivate,  arouse,  and  hold  in  silent,  rapt  attention. 

67 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

There  was  something  in  it  essentially  characteristic 
of  the  man  himself — it  was  plain  speaking,  a  constant 
appeal  to  the  reason,  the  judgment,  and  the  better 
qualities  of  men,  without  any  proclaimed  right  to  con- 
trol by  mere  rhetorical  display.  This  was  Cobden  all 
through.  It  was  an  eloquence  entirely  his  own,  pecu- 
liar and  self-possessed,  but  never  self-assertive. 

Cobden  was  unquestionably  a  great  man,  a  great 
political  and  intellectual  influence,  but  he  seemed  mod- 
estly unconscious  of  his  own  splendid  powers,  and  never 
gave  one  the  idea  that  he  felt  himself  endowed  with  the 
heaven-born  right  to  dictate  and  to  command.  His 
manner  in  private  was  simple,  modest,  and  companion- 
able. We  felt  perfectly  at  ease  in  conversing  with  him, 
and  were  never  impressed  with  the  humbling  conscious- 
ness that  we  stood  in  the  presence  of  a  superior  mortal. 
He  lifted  us  up  to  his  own  level  without  any  apparent 
effort  to  bring  himself  down  to  ours.  He  had  had  ex- 
periences and  opportunities  of  observation  which  were 
far  from  common  in  his  days.  At  that  time  great  states- 
men were  not  much  in  the  habit  of  improving  their 
minds  by  extensive  and  varied  foreign  travel.  The 
leaders  of  parliamentary  and  public  opinion  were  not 
then  accustomed  to  go  far  beyond  the  range  of  that 
limited  amount  of  travel  which,  at  one  time,  used  to 
be  habitually  described  as  the  grand  tour.  Lord  Palm- 
erston,  Lord  John  Russell,  and  other  statesmen  had 
never  extended  their  wanderings  beyond  the  easily  at- 
tained reach  of  conventional  European  travel.  They 
knew  nothing,  from  personal  experience,  of  England's 
foreign  and  colonial  possessions.  Even  men  like  Glad- 
stone and  Disraeli  had  not  accomplished  much  in  this 
way  beyond  the  familiar  regions  of  the  Continent,  and 
Gladstone's  experiences  of  Greece  and  Disraeli's  visit 
to  the  Holy  Land  were  beyond  the  ordinary  reach  of  a 

68 


RICHARD    COBDEN 

statesman's  journey  ings.  I  remember  hearing  it  re- 
marked at  one  period  that  the  late  Lord  Stanley  was  the 
only  member  of  his  administration  who  never  having 
held  the  office  of  Viceroy  was  personally  acquainted 
with  India.  Cobden  had  made  himself  familiar  with 
all  parts  of  the  European  Continent,  including  Russia ; 
he  had  travelled  all  over  the  United  States  and  Canada, 
and  during  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  any 
great  foreign  or  colonial  question  he  was  able  to 
strengthen  his  arguments  by  his  own  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  condition  of  the  various  populations  in  the 
countries  whose  affairs  were  the  subject  of  discussion. 
Wherever  he  travelled  he  was  on  the  lookout  for  the 
best  and  most  trustworthy  information  to  be  had  from 
all  quarters,  and  he  was  not  content  to  take  his  impres- 
sions of  a  foreign  state  or  a  distant  colony  from  the 
views  which  prevailed  at  the  British  Embassy  or  at  the 
headquarters  of  the  colonial  governor.  He  spoke  and 
wrote  French  with  fluency  and  accuracy,  and  I  often 
observed  that  Michel  Chevalier  and  he  carried  on 
their  conversation  on  questions  of  tariffs  and  the  inter- 
change of  commodities  and  other  intricate  and  essen- 
tially technical  subjects  in  Chevalier's  own  language. 

My  acquaintance  with  Cobden  was  kept  up  at  inter- 
vals to  the  close  of  his  life,  and  I  was  only  more  and 
more  impressed  each  time  I  met  him  with  the  sweetness 
of  his  nature,  the  modesty  of  his  manners,  and  his  utter 
freedom  from  that  overbearing  or  even  self-asserting 
quality  which  is  so  commonly  and  excusably  the  attri- 
bute of  those  who  come  to  know  they  have  achieved 
greatness.  He  had  that  faculty  which  belonged  also  to 
Gladstone,  of  finding  something  to  learn  from  every  one 
with  whom  he  came  into  contact.  However  limited  and 
commonplace  might  have  been  the  experiences  of  some 
who  had  the  good  fortune  to  make  Cobden's  acquaint- 

69 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

ance,  we  always  found  him  inclined  to  bring  each  of  us 
into  conversation  on  subjects  personally  familiar,  and 
thus  to  make  even  the  slightest  addition  to  his  own  ex- 
tensive stores  of  knowledge. 

The  country  lost  much  by  the  fact  that  Cobden  never 
held  high  office,  or  office  of  any  kind,  in  an  administra- 
tion. Every  one  remembers  that  Lord  Palmerston  in- 
vited him  to  accept  office  in  the  government  of  1859. 
Palmerston  then  offered  him  the  position  of  President 
of  the  Board  of  Trade,  a  place  which  would  exactly 
have  suited  his  inclination,  his  knowledge  of  commer- 
cial affairs,  and  his  wide  and  varied  experience  as  an 
observer  and  a  traveller.  I  have  personal  reasons  for 
remembering  the  occasion  well.  Cobden  was  in  the 
United  States  on  a  second  visit  at  the  time  when  Palm- 
erston was  forming  his  government.  The  offer  was 
made  known  to  Cobden's  friends  and  political  col- 
leagues, and  it  so  happened  that  Cobden's  return  to 
England  was  just  then  expected.  He  was  to  land  at 
Liverpool,  where  I  was  then  living,  attached  to  the 
literary  staff  of  a  daily  newspaper.  Some  of  Cobden's 
friends  engaged  a  small  steamer  to  take  them  out  of 
the  Mersey,  in  order  that  they  might  meet  the  vessel 
which  was  bringing  Cobden  home,  and  thus  let  him 
know  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  the  offer  Lord 
Palmerston  was  about  to  make.  I  was  given  the  oppor- 
tunity of  accompanying  the  party  of  friends,  an  oppor- 
tunity of  which  I  availed  myself  most  gladly.  I  had 
at  that  time  no  personal  acquaintance  with  Cobden,  and 
was  merely  an  observer  of  the  meeting  which  took  place 
between  him  and  his  friends.  Cobden  acted  with  his 
usual  composure  and  discretion  when  he  received  the 
news.  He  told  his  friends  that  he  could  not  make  any 
statement  off-hand  as  to  the  course  which  he  should 
pursue  with  regard  to  the  invitation,  or  give  any 

70 


RICHARD    COBDEN 

answer  until  the  time  came  for  delivering  his  reply  to 
Lord  Palmer ston  himself.  I  can  remember  that  most 
of  his  friends  already  anticipated  the  answer  which  was 
to  be  given,  and  had,  indeed,  anticipated  it  even  before 
they  had  an  opportunity  of  telling  the  news  to  Cobden. 
Lord  Palmerston's  offer  was  refused,  and  every  one 
capable  of  forming  an  impartial  judgment  felt  that  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  a  man  of  Cobden's  sin- 
cerity and  consistency  to  give  any  other  answer  to  the 
proposal. 

Cobden  had  always  publicly  and  privately  condemned 
the  general  principles  of  Palmerston's  home  and  foreign 
policy.  He  took  it  for  granted,  no  doubt,  that  even 
though  he  were  to  occupy  a  seat  in  the  cabinet,  which, 
of  course,  was  part  of  the  proposal,  he  could  not  hope 
to  overrule  the  influence  of  the  prime-minister  to  any 
degree  which  would  make  it  worth  his  while  to  associate 
himself  with  a  Palmerstonian  administration.  Many 
of  Cobden's  warmest  admirers  and  most  devoted  follow- 
ers, even  in  the  north  of  England,  were  strongly  of 
opinion  that  he  ought  to  accept  the  opportunity  of 
bringing  his  influence  to  bear  upon  the  new  administra- 
tion for  the  advancement  of  liberal  principles  and  for 
the  good  of  the  country.  At  the  very  time  when  Cob- 
den received  at  Liverpool  Lord  Palmerston's  letter  con- 
taining the  offer,  he  received  also  a  very  urgent  letter 
from  Lord  John  Russell,  pressing  him  to  accept  it; 
but  Cobden's  resolution  was  formed;  his  conscientious 
course  was  clear ;  and  I  may  add  that  his  determination 
had  the  absolute  approval  of  John  Bright.  The  whole 
story  is  told  by  Cobden's  own  letters,  published  in  John 
Morley's  Life  of  Richard  Cobden,  which  has  now  be- 
come an  English  classic.  I  must  confess  to  having 
brought  up  this  chapter  of  Cobden's  life  chiefly  for  the 
selfish  reason  that  it  is  associated  with  my  own  per- 

71 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

sonal  recollections.  I  look  back  upon  that  day  in  the 
Mersey,  when  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  take  part  in 
the  welcome  given  to  Richard  Cobden,  as  one  of  the 
bright  memories  of  my  life. 

Thomas  Carlyle  is  rather  severe  on  persons  who  waste 
any  time  in  speculating  on  what  might  have  been.  I 
am  much  disposed,  however,  to  yield  to  this  natural 
inclination  just  at  present.  Suppose  Cobden  could 
have  seen  his  way  to  enter  the  cabinet  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  and  suppose — a  still  more  difficult  supposition — 
that  he  could  have  exercised  any  real  influence  over  the 
self-asserting  nature  and  the  perverse  policy  of  Palmer- 
ston,  how  many  troubles  might  have  been  averted  for 
England  during  the  few  years  that  preceded  Cobden's 
death!  Let  us  speak  of  one  subject  only.  The  great 
American  civil  war  was  then  just  about  to  open,  and 
Palmerston  led  that  large  majority  of  Englishmen  in 
high  social  position  who  firmly  believed  that  the  South- 
ern States  were  destined  to  win,  and  that  the  Northern 
States  were  sure  to  make  but  a  poor  figure,  and  even  a 
ridiculous  figure,  in  the  struggle.  Cobden  had  a  living 
acquaintance  with  all  parts  of  the  American  republic, 
and  could  make  sound  calculation  as  to  the  comparative 
resources  on  both  sides  of  the  great  quarrel.  Naturally, 
Cobden's  whole  sympathy  went  with  the  cause  of  the 
North,  just  as  Palmerston's  sympathies  went  with  the 
cause  of  the  South,  but  Cobden's  cool  judgment  was 
never  likely  to  be  overborne  by  his  sympathies,  and  he 
was  able  to  make  quiet  comparison  of  the  forces  arrayed 
on  either  side.  Cobden  was  convinced  that  the  Federal 
States  were  destined  to  be  the  victors ;  Palmerston  took 
it  for  granted  that  the  Federal  States  were  sure  to  be 
the  vanquished. 

Palmerston's  whole  policy  during  all  the  earlier  part 
of  the  civil  war  was  conducted  on  the  assumption  that 

72 


RICHARD    COBDEN 

the  North  was  simply  playing  the  part  of  a  braggart 
and  a  coward  and  a  bungler,  and  that  no  English 
government  was  called  upon  to  show  anything  but  con- 
tempt for  so  sorry  and  hopeless  a  performance.  This 
was  not  only  the  meaning  of  his  policy,  but  it  found 
expression  in  many  of  his  speeches  in  and  outside  the 
House  of  Commons.  His  tone  was  taken  up  by  many 
public  speakers  and  by  most  of  the  daily  and  weekly 
journals,  by  whom  the  cause  and  the  statesmen,  the 
generals  and  the  armies,  of  the  North  were  held  up  to 
incessant  ridicule.  Before  the  Federal  States  were  able 
to  prove  their  capacity  for  carrying  on  the  war  to  a 
successful  issue  a  strong  feeling  of  hostility  had  already 
been  excited  among  Americans  of  the  Northern  States, 
and  at  one  time  it  seemed  as  if  a  lasting  enmity  were 
doomed  to  prevail  between  England  and  the  victorious 
North.  If  it  were  possible  that  even  so  great  a  man 
as  Cobden,  holding  a  seat  in  the  English  cabinet,  could 
exercise  a  restraining  influence  over  Lord  Palmerston 
and  some  of  his  colleagues,  the  country  might  have  been 
saved  from  the  Alabama  trouble,  from  the  payment  of 
the  heavy  damages  decreed  by  the  Geneva  Convention, 
and  from  the  humiliation  of  having  to  make  a  public 
apology.  But  we  may  take  it  for  granted  that  not  even 
Cobden  could  have  exercised  such  a  restraining  in- 
fluence over  Palmerston,  and  that  the  great  free-trader, 
if  he  had  accepted  office,  would  have  sacrificed  his 
conscientious  scruples  to  no  good  purpose  whatever. 

We  know  only  too  well  from  documents  afterwards 
published  with  authority  that  Queen  Victoria  herself 
was  entirely  opposed  to  the  tone  and  policy  of  Lord 
Palmerston  in  dealing  with  the  American  question, 
and  that  her  influence,  limited  as  it  was  by  her  fidelity 
to  constitutional  principles,  was  not  strong  enough  to 
bring  the  prime-minister  to  a  better  mood.  The  course 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

taken  by  Cobden  when  he  positively  refused,  under 
whatever  persuasion,  to  accept  office  in  Palmerston's 
cabinet  must  have  the  full  approval  of  history.  We 
know  that  in  this  case  the  might  have  been  would  not 
have  been.  Cobden  was  as  true  a  lover  of  his  country 
as  ever  lived  or  died  for  her  service.  He  loved  her  so 
well  and  so  fearlessly  that  he  never  shrank  from  telling 
her  when  he  believed  her  to  be  in  the  wrong.  His  death 
cast  a  profound  gloom  over  the  sixties,  not  only  in  Eng- 
land, but  throughout  the  whole  civilized  world. 


CHAPTER   VII 

JOHN    HEIGHT 

THE  first  time  I  saw  John  Bright  was  at  a  great 
public  meeting  in  the  Free  Trade  Hall,  Manchester — 
a  very  appropriate  place  in  which  to  have  one's  first 
glimpse  of  such  a  man.  That  was  before  the  opening  of 
the  sixties  and  when  I  was  still  a  resident  of  Liverpool. 
Much  as  I  had  heard  of  Bright's  eloquence,  I  was  not 
quite  prepared  for  the  splendid  intellectual  treat  which 
I  enjoyed  on  that  memorable  evening.  Bright's  speech 
seemed  to  me  a  perfect  combination  of  argument,  elo- 
quence, and  music  of  voice.  Often  as  I  heard  him 
through  a  long  series  of  succeeding  years,  I  never 
found  any  change  made  in  the  impression  wrought  on 
me  by  his  speech  of  that  evening.  He  could  not  have 
added  to  the  estimate  I  then  formed  of  his  oratorical 
powers,  and  in  no  important  speech  of  his  to  which  I 
afterwards  listened  did  he  ever  lessen  that  first  estimate. 
I  have  heard  many  orators  of  the  highest  order  who 
sometimes  even  on  great  occasions  did  not  show  to 
their  best  advantage,  but  John  Bright  was  certainly  not 
one  of  these.  Perhaps  one  reason  for  this  was  that 
Bright  seldom  made  a  speech  unless  on  some  important 
occasion.  Until  towards  the  close  of  his  life  he  never 
was  a  member  of  an  administration,  and  thus  was  not 
compelled  to  address  the  House  of  Commons  on  mere 
questions  of  departmental  work.  He  took  no  pleasure 
in  the  making  of  speeches  except  for  the  mere  sake  of 

75 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  influence  he  could  exercise  on  behalf  of  some  great 
cause  in  which  he  had  a  heartfelt  interest. 

It  seems  strange  that  a  man  so  richly  endowed  with 
the  gift  of  eloquence  and  with  a  voice  whose  clear, 
various,  and  musical  tones  might  make  even  the  com- 
monplace seem  eloquent,  should  have  found  no  personal 
gratification  in  the  delivery  of  a  speech.  The  natural 
sense  of  satisfaction  springing  from  success  of  any  kind 
might,  one  would  think,  make  such  a  man  welcome  any 
fair  opportunity  of  displaying  his  remarkable  power. 
But  I  had  Bright's  own  assurance  more  than  once  that 
he  never  would  have  made  a  speech  if  he  had  thought  it 
consistent  with  his  sense  of  duty  to  remain  silent,  and, 
of  course,  I  fully  believed  his  assurance,  as  every 
one  must  have  done  who  knew  him.  In  truth, 
Bright  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  as  devoid  of 
any  sense  of  personal  vanity,  even  artistic  vanity, 
as  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be.  He  threw  his 
whole  soul  into  the  advocacy  of  the  cause  he  was 
striving  to  promote,  and  always  devoted  the  highest 
resources  of  his  intellect  and  his  eloquence  to  the  pro- 
motion of  that  cause ;  but  his  own  personal  success  was 
to  him  a  matter  of  little  or  no  consideration.  Jfor  does 
he  appear  to  me  to  have  felt  any  of  that  joy  in  the 
political  strife  which  is  common  among  great  parlia- 
mentary debaters.  It  was  impossible  not  to  feel  the 
conviction  that  Gladstone  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  mere 
excitement  of  encountering  and  bearing  down  his  op- 
ponents in  a  parliamentary  discussion;  and  with  Dis- 
raeli, when  he  had  to  deliver  his  closing  reply  on  some 
momentous  occasion,  the  rapture  of  the  battle  was  even 
more  apparent.  I  am  disposed  to  regard  John  Bright 
as  the  greatest  orator  I  have  ever  heard,  but  not  as  the 
greatest  debater.  Perhaps  the  very  peculiarity  of  his 
temperament,  which  I  have  attempted  to  describe,  may 

76 


JOHN    BRIGHT 

account  for  the  fact  that  he  never  seemed  to  give  him- 
self entirely  up  to  the  splendid  business  of  debate. 
To  be  a  consummate  debater,  one  must  be  inspired  by 
the  joy  of  the  strife. 

I  came  to  know  Bright  personally  very  soon  after 
I  had  settled  in  London  in  1860,  and  my  acquaintance 
with  him  lasted  until  the  close  of  his  great  career. 
Bright  took  a  close,  personal  interest  in  the  conduct 
of  the  Morning  Star,  the  London  daily  newspaper  with 
which  I  became  associated,  first  as  reporter  in  the 
press-gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons,  then  as  for- 
eign editor,  and  afterwards  as  editor-in-chief.  Bright 
used  to  visit  the  editorial  rooms  of  the  Morning  Star 
very  often  during  the  parliamentary  session ;  used  to  tell 
us  how  things  were  going  in  the  House,  offer  sugges- 
tions and  advice,  and  talk  over  all  manner  of  interesting 
subjects.  We  had  then  a  five-o'clock-tea  arrangement 
in  our  editorial  rooms,  and  those  who  formed  the  edi- 
torial staff  sat  down  together  every  evening  to  discuss 
the  arrangements  for  leading  articles  and  other  contribu- 
tions, and  to  talk  over  the  events  of  the  day.  The 
editor  of  the  Morning  Star  at  that  time  was  Mr.  Samuel 
Lucas,  a  brother-in-law  of  Bright,  a  man  of  great  in- 
tellectual faculties  and  charming  conversational  powers. 
Bright  often  took  part  in  our  evening  gatherings,  gave 
us  his  advice  on  the  manner  in  which  passing  political 
events  ought  to  be  treated,  discussed  with  imperturbable 
calmness  this  or  that  question  on  which  difference  of 
opinion  existed  among  us,  and  entered  very  freely  into 
all  our  talk.  His  brother  Jacob  Bright  sometimes,  but 
not  so  often,  made  one  of  our  little  gathering.  Most 
of  the  men  who  sat  round  that  table  in  the  early  sixties 
have  passed  out  of  this  world. 

John  Bright  was  in  the  habit  of  coming  down  to  the 
Star  office  from  the  House  of  Commons  at  anv  hour  of 

77 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  evening  or  night  when  he  had  something  to  tell  us 
which  it  was  important  that  we  should  know  at  the  earli- 
est possible  moment.  Thus  began  my  close  acquaintance 
with  Bright — an  acquaintance  which  is  one  of  the  most 
treasured  memories  of  my  life.  I  do  not  know  that  I 
have  ever  experienced  a  higher  sense  of  personal  grati- 
fication than  that  which  came  to  me  one  evening  during 
the  first  few  days  after  my  election  to  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Some  debate  was  going  on  having 
to  do  with  the  condition  and  the  government  of  Ireland 
— such  debates  came  on  rather  often  then  as  now  in  that 
assembly — and  Bright  took  part  in  the  discussion.  In 
the  course  of  his  speech  he  made  passing  reference  to 
the  recent  election  for  an  Irish  constituency,  and  in  the 
kindliest  words  offered  his  genial  welcome  to  me  on  my 
introduction  to  the  House,  and  expressed  a  hope  that 
I  might  often  be  heard  in  its  debates.  I  felt  then  and 
feel  now  that  I  could  not  have  received  a  higher  recom- 
mendation. 

During  my  long  intimacy  with  Bright  I  had,  of  course, 
ample  opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  his 
simple  and  noble  nature,  his  opinions  on  all  manner 
of  subjects,  his  likings  and  dislikings,  his  tastes  and  his 
aversions.  I  never  knew  a  man  who  had  less  of  personal 
vanity,  less  of  ambition,  less  of  self-seeking.  He  under- 
stood and  appreciated  the  value  of  his  own  speeches 
on  great  occasions,  but  he  regarded  them  with  no  more 
feeling  of  personal  pride  than  a  man  might  take  in  his 
physical  health  and  his  power  of  enduring  fatigue.  He 
was  keenly  interested  in  the  eloquence  of  other  men, 
but  I  think  he  could  hardly  bring  himself  to  a  thorough 
admiration  of  any  eloquence  which  was  not  inspired  by 
absolute  sincerity.  Thus  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  he 
ever  quite  appreciated  the  marvellous  powers  of  Dis- 
raeli as  a  debater,  and  that  his  judgment  was  always 

78 


JOHN    BRIGHT 

somewhat  biassed  by  the  conviction  that  Disraeli  was 
striving  for  his  own  personal  success  rather  than  for  the 
success  of  any  great  political  cause.  I  think  if  he  could 
have  believed  that  Disraeli  was  a  sincere  and  con- 
vinced Conservative  he  would  have  thought  more  highly 
than  he  did  of  the  tory  leader's  oratorical  capacity. 
This  was,  in  fact,  his  way  of  estimating  all  public  men 
— he  demanded  integrity  of  convictions  first  of  all,  and 
gave  to  other  qualifications,  however  great,  an  inferior 
place  in  his  estimate.  His  intense  admiration  of  Glad- 
stone had  its  first  impulse  in  his  recognition  of  Glad- 
stone's absolute  sincerity.  With  that  conviction  to  start 
from,  he  came  to  have  the  most  exalted  opinion  of  Glad- 
stone's eloquence  in  debate. 

He  was  on  one  occasion  positively  angry  with  me 
because  I  happened  to  say  that  I  regarded  him,  John 
Bright,  as  a  greater  orator  than  Gladstone,  although  not 
perhaps  so  great  a  debater.  He  told  me,  in  his  blunt, 
good-humored  way,  that  I  could  hardly  have  been  think- 
ing of  what  I  was  saying,  because  nobody  with  any 
judgment  could  set  him  up  as  a  rival  in  eloquence  to 
Gladstone.  He  spoke  with  absolute  earnestness,  and 
not  in  the  least  with  the  manner  of  one  who  modestly 
affects  to  disclaim  some  words  of  praise  implying  the 
disparagement  of  another  orator.  He  was  merely  angry 
with  me  for  what  he  evidently  considered  an  inexcus- 
able defect  of  critical  judgment,  and  he  went  on  to 
illustrate  his  meaning  by  referring  to  various  passages 
in  some  of  Gladstone's  speeches  which  he  declared  that 
no  living  man  but  Gladstone  himself  could  have  spoken. 
Perhaps  I  may  have  thought,  when  offering  my  opinion, 
that  the  superior  place  I  had  given  to  Gladstone  as  a 
debater  would  have  disarmed  his  opposition,  but  if  I 
had  any  thought  of  the  kind  he  soon  convinced  me  that 
I  had  not  thoroughly  appreciated  his  admiration  for 

79 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Gladstone's  surpassing  qualities.  I  may  say,  too,  that 
Bright  especially  admired  in  Gladstone  the  quality 
which  made  him  direct  all  his  intellectual  and  oratorical 
powers  to  the  promotion  of  some  definite  and  practical 
end. 

It  was,  perhaps,  one  of  Bright's  characteristic  weak- 
nesses that  he  was  apt  to  undervalue  mere  intellect, 
however  great,  which  did  not  devote  itself  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  some  direct  and  substantial,  some  im- 
mediate and  palpable  benefit  to  humanity  in  general. 
His  sympathies  and  his  admiration  did  not  find  them- 
selves much  attracted  by  mere  thinkers,  however  exalted 
their  thoughts  might  be,  and  however  just  their  con- 
clusions. He  never  fully  appreciated,  for  instance,  the 
intellectual  powers  of  John  Stuart  Mill  until  Mill  had 
come  out  from  his  habitual  seclusion  and  made  him- 
self an  active  worker  in  political  life.  From  that  time 
Mill  had  no  warmer  admirer  than  Bright,  although  even 
then  he  was  sometimes  a  little  impatient  of  Mill's 
theories  about  representation  of  minorities,  which 
Bright  considered  to  be  rather  out  of  the  way  of  im- 
mediate and  practical  reform.  This  tendency  of  his 
mind  was  effectively  expressed  in  his  resolute  refusal, 
on  one  important  occasion,  to  take  any  part  in  dis- 
cussing the  relative  advantages  of  the  monarchical  and 
republican  system  of  government.  There  were  at  that 
time  among  the  most  advanced  of  the  younger  Liberals 
some  able  men  who  were  inclined  to  favor  republican 
principles  on  the  ground  that  they  represented  a  more 
true  and  just  idea  as  an  ultimate  theory  of  government 
than  that  represented  by  the  monarchical  system. 
Bright  merely  declared  that  the  republican  question 
had  not  come  up  for  England,  and  with  that  declaration 
he  put  the  whole  argument  aside  and  would  have  noth- 
ing more  to  do  with  it.  His  conviction  was  that  the 

80 


JOHN    BRIGHT 

business  of  the  hour  was  enough  for  practical  men,  and 
that  mere  theories  had  better  be  left  for  the  time  when 
a  change  of  conditions  might  bring  them  within  the 
range  of  practical  statesmanship. 

Bright  loved  reading,  but  his  range  of  reading  was 
limited.  He  was  an  intense  and  even  impassioned 
admirer  of  some  poets,  but  there  again  his  critical  judg- 
ment was  influenced  by  his  inherent  conviction  that 
the  tone  of  the  poet  must  be  absolutely  pure.  Among 
the  books  inspired  by  mere  human  genius  he  gave  the 
highest  place  to  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  and  Paradise 
Regained.  He  could  declaim  from  memory  long  pas- 
sages of  Paradise  Losi,  and  I  have  never  heard  poetic 
lines  delivered  with  more  true  and  exquisite  effect.  He 
never  felt  drawn  in  the  same  manner  towards  Shake- 
speare, although  he  was  quite  willing  to  admit  Shake- 
speare's supreme  place  among  English  poets.  But  his 
intense  love  of  purity  shrank  from  the  Cleopatras  and 
the  lagos  and  the  Fal staffs  as  much  as  from  the  Ancient 
Pistols  and  the  Doll  Tearsheets.  He  had  an  abhorrence 
of  sensuality  and  coarseness  even  when  these  formed 
essential  parts  of  the  character  which  had  to  be  de- 
scribed. "  Why  describe  such  characters  at  all  ?"  he 
asked,  and  this  was  a  great  part  of  his  critical  theory. 

Bright  was  a  master  of  genuine  Saxon  humor.  Some 
of  his  unprepared  replies  to  the  interruptions  of  po- 
litical opponents  in  the  House  of  Commons  were  marvel- 
lous examples  of  this  faculty,  and  are  frequently  quoted 
even  now  in  speeches  and  in  newspaper  articles.  But 
there  was  nothing  whatever  of  levity  in  Bright's  humor, 
and  his  most  effective  satirical  touches  seemed  as  if 
they  were  intended  rather  to  rouse  into  better  judgment 
than  to  wound  or  offend  the  man  at  whom  they  were 
directed.  I  think  the  one  defect  which  Bright  could 
not  fully  forgive  in  any  man  was  want  of  sincerity. 
«  81 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

I  have  heard  him  again  and  again  in  private  conversa- 
tion enter  into  the  defence  of  some  extreme  political 
opponent  on  the  ground  that  the  opponent,  however 
mistaken,  aggressive,  and  even  unjust,  was  acting  in 
accordance  with  his  sincere  convictions.  I  can  remem- 
ber many  instances  in  which  Bright  strongly  objected 
to  certain  criticisms  of  political  opponents,  criticisms 
appearing  in  the  newspaper  representing  his  own  po- 
litical creed,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  not  quite 
fair  and  would  be  likely  to  give  pain.  Most  of  the  men 
who  wrote  for  the  Morning  Star  in  those  days  were 
young  and  had  their  fair  share  of  youth's  audacity  and 
recklessness,  and  when  they  got  a  good  chance  of  holding 
up  some  political  opponent  to  ridicule  or  contempt  they 
were  not  slow  to  avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity, 
and  were  not  always  over-scrupulous  in  their  manner  of 
using  it.  Bright  always  objected  to  any  criticism  which 
seemed  to  him  unfair  or  exaggerated.  He  did  not 
object  to  hard  hitting — he  was  himself  the  most  splendid 
of  parliamentary  hard-hitters;  but  he  would  give  no 
sanction  to  anything  that  seemed  like  hitting  below  the 
belt.  He  was  "  ever  a  fighter,"  like  Robert  Browning's 
hero,  but  it  was  always  in  open  fight  and  in  honorable 
adherence  to  the  rules  and  traditions  of  the  game. 

The  mention  of  Robert  Browning's  name  reminds 
me  that  Bright  was  a  personal  friend  of  the  great  poet. 
To  the  ordinary  observer  these  two  men  might  seem 
to  have  very  little  in  common,  but  each  had  a  high  and 
just  estimate  of  the  other's  greatness  in  his  own  field, 
and  each  found  much  that  was  congenial  in  the  society 
of  the  other.  I  have  been  told  lately  that  Browning 
once  objected  with  good-humored  earnestness  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  Bright  gave  serious  consideration  to  the 
theory  of  collaboration  between  Shakespeare  and  Bacon. 
Browning  said  to  a  friend  of  mine  that  it  particularly 

82 


distressed  him  to  hear  Bright  lending  the  aid  of  his 
noble  voice  and  his  marvellous  elocution  to  the  wrong 
side  of  such  a  controversy.  But  I  do  not  think  that 
Bright  ever  went  any  further  than  to  claim  a  fair  hear- 
ing for  the  theory,  and  I  am  happy  to  believe  that  the 
friendship  of  Bright  and  Browning  was  not  seriously 
affected  by  Bright's  theoretical  views  on  the  subject 
even  if  we  suppose  his  views  to  have  been  heretical. 
I  am  always  glad  to  remember  that  for  my  first  intro- 
duction to  the  personal  acquaintance  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing I  was  indebted  to  John  Bright.  The  acquaintance 
was  a  very  happy  one  for  me,  and  it  lasted  while  Brown- 
ing lived. 

Bright  was  in  one  sense  a  sort  of  human  paradox. 
I  never  met  a  man  more  liberally  endowed  with  that 
delightful  gift,  a  sense  of  humor,  and  yet  I  never  knew 
a  man  more  profoundly  serious  in  his  views  of  life. 
We  have  all  been  made  quite  familiar  in  poetry,  in 
fiction,  in  biography,  and  in  actual  life  with  the  men 
who  always  present  an  outer  surface  of  jocularity,  wit, 
and  humor  while  the  hearts  that  lie  beneath  are  ever 
steeped  in  gloom  and  melancholy.  But  Bright  did  not 
belong  in  any  sense  to  that  order  of  mortals.  His  was 
not  a  melancholy  or  a  gloomy,  but  a  calm  and  even 
a  hopeful  temperament.  His  nature  was  cheerful,  and 
was  full  of  faith  in  the  ultimate  purposes  of  life  and  in 
the  final  triumph  of  the  rightful  cause.  In  the  darkest 
times  of  outer  depression  for  the  men  and  the  movements 
holding  his  sympathy  he  always  looked  steadily  for- 
ward to  the  sure  coming  of  the  brighter  day.  He  had 
not  the  moods  of  the  satirist  and  the  scorner  any  more 
than  he  had  the  moods  of  the  sceptic.  Under  all  his 
jocularity  and  his  delight  in  humorous  forms  of  ex- 
pression he  was  intensely  serious,  and  he  regarded  even 
trivial  things  from  a  serious  point  of  view.  This  was 

83 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  peculiarity  in  him  which  I  have  hardly  ever  ob- 
served in  other  men,  and  it  made  him  sometimes  seem 
what  I  have  described  as  a  human  paradox.  Many  of 
Bright's  finest  and  most  effective  oratorical  hits  were 
made  when  he  dealt  with  some  serious  argument  of 
an  opponent  as  if  it  could  best  be  demolished  by  a  mere 
flash  of  humor,  and  yet  all  the  time  he  was  considering 
the  subject  with  the  utmost  seriousness,  and  only  made 
use  of  the  jest  as  the  most  prompt  and  complete  method 
of  demolishing  a  hostile  argument. 

This  was  the  characteristic  quality  of  Bright's  ordi- 
nary conversation  in  private  life.  It  was  his  way  to 
illumine  the  gravest  subject  by  this  light  of  humor,  but 
those  who  knew  him  understood  well  what  a  depth  of 
seriousness — not  gloom,  not  despondency,  not  satirical 
scorn — lay  beneath  his  lightest  and  most  jocular  ex- 
pression. He  was  not  an  extremist  in  any  of  his  po- 
litical views,  and  there  was  nothing  of  the  destructive 
in  his  political  projects,  although  many  years  of  his 
public  life  he  passed  among  most  of  his  opponents  for 
a  man  whose  chief  desire  was  to  pull  down  all  existing 
systems.  He  had  little  or  no  sympathy  with  mere  revo- 
lution of  any  kind,  and  there  was  much  of  true  con- 
servatism in  all  his  plans  of  political  and  social  reform. 
He  occasionally  disappointed  some  even  of  his  warmest 
admirers  by  the  steadiness  with  which  he  distinguished 
between  reform  and  revolution.  He  was  willing  to 
accept  the  existing  system  anywhere  so  long  as  it  was 
susceptible  of  gradual  improvement,  and  his  object  was 
to  develop  whatever  was  good  in  the  existing  conditions 
and  not  to  pull  down  the  whole  fabric  and  then  begin 
building  all  over  again.  For  this  reason  he  had  but 
little  sympathy  with  continental  revolutions,  and  he 
seldom  warmed  into  genuine  enthusiasm  even  for  the 
most  sincere  among  continental  revolutionists. 

84 


JOHN    BRIGHT 

Bright  had  little  opportunity  of  proving  his  capacity 
for  official  administration.  He  held  office  three  times 
in  a  liberal  government,  but  not  long  enough  at  any 
time  to  give  him  a  chance  of  showing  what  he  could  do 
in  a  working  department.  When  he  first  took  office 
under  Gladstone  in  1868  he  gave  a  remarkable  proof 
of  the  rigid  conscientiousness  which  belonged  to  his 
character.  He  withdrew  from  all  share,  direct  or  in- 
direct, in  the  conduct  of  the  Morning  Star,  because  he 
believed  that  a  minister  of  the  crown  would  be  open  to 
the  charge  of  exercising  an  undue  influence  if  he  kept 
up  any  control  over  a  newspaper.  This  may  seem  a 
mere  scruple,  but  it  was  an  honorable  scruple,  and 
entirely  in  keeping  with  Bright's  code  of  principles  and 
of  honor.  There  is  a  common  belief  that  he  resigned 
the  last  office  which  he  held  under  Gladstone  because 
he  could  not  accept  Gladstone's  proposal  for  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Irish  national  Parliament.  I  have  seen 
this  erroneous  opinion  set  forth  again  and  again  oy 
writers  who  ought  to  have  known  better,  and  might 
have  had  a  better  memory  of  the  actual  facts.  Bright 
resigned  office  at  that  time  because  he  could  not  support 
the  policy  of  the  government  with  regard  to  Egypt,  and 
would  not  have  anything  to  do  with  the  course  of  ac- 
tion which  ended  in  the  bombardment  of  Alexandria. 
Bright  was  not  a  man  pledged  to  the  doctrine  of  "  peace 
at  any  price,"  but  he  could  not  lend  himself  to  a  policy 
of  war  which  was  not  strictly  defensive  and  was  not  the 
last  available  recourse. 

Bright  was  not  a  member  of  the  government  which, 
under  the  leadership  of  Gladstone,  brought  in  the  first 
measure  of  Home  Rule.  Bright  was  opposed  to  the 
principle  of  a  separate  Parliament  for  Ireland ;  but  al- 
though I  must  ever  regret  that  he  should  have  opposed 
it,  I  cannot  but  admit  that  he  was  acting  with  perfect 

85 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

consistency.  Bright  was  the  friend  of  Ireland  when 
she  had  hardly  any  other  friends  among  leading 
English  statesmen.  He  had  been  entertained  at  a  na- 
tional banquet  in  Dublin  given  to  him  in  recognition 
of  the  splendid  services  he  had  performed  in  defence  of 
Ireland  against  unjust  and  oppressive  legislation.  He 
had  declared  his  guiding  principle  with  regard  to  the 
government  of  Ireland  again  and  again.  That  principle 
was  that  the  imperial  Parliament  ought  to  do  for  Ire- 
land exactly  what  Ireland  would  have  done  for  herself 
— that  is,  what  the  great  majority  of  the  Irish  people 
would  have  done — if  she  had  been  able  to  accomplish 
a  successful  revolution.  To  that  principle  he  ever  held 
with  unflinching  consistency.  But  it  was  his  belief 
that  the  work  could  be  accomplished  by  the  imperial 
Parliament,  and  would  be  accomplished,  in  course  of 
time,  by  the  force  of  argument,  by  increasing  knowledge 
of  Ireland's  wants,  and  by  the  growth  of  enlightened 
public  opinion.  He  did  not  believe  that  a  national  Irish 
Parliament  was  needed  for  the  purpose,  and  he  was 
opposed  to  the  breaking-up  of  the  central  Parliament 
into  separate  parliamentary  systems.  We  need  not  dis- 
cuss that  question  now  and  in  these  pages,  but  I  am 
anxious  to  record  my  conviction  that  Bright  was  con- 
sistent in  his  whole  course  of  action  towards  Ireland, 
and  that  he  did  not,  as  others  did,  become  a  sudden 
convert  to  the  doctrine  of  what  now  would  be  called  im- 
perialism. He  had  been  denounced  more  thaji  once  by 
his  political  enemies  as  the  friend  of  Ireland,  and 
even  those  Irishmen  who,  like  myself,  cannot  believe 
that  he  came  to  a  wise  conclusion  on  the  subject  of 
Home  Rule  are  ready  to  admit  that  he  remained,  ac- 
cording to  his  lights,  the  friend  of  Ireland  to  the  last. 

At  one  period  of  Bright's  career  —  indeed,  at  its 
zenith — a  high-toned  and  fastidious  London  journal, 

86 


JOHN    BRIGHT 

having  given  him  much  commendation  for  his  eloquence, 
declared  that  it  was  a  pity  Mr.  Bright  had  never  quite 
caught  the  tone  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  im- 
mediate and  obvious  comment  made  by  other  writers 
on  this  declaration  was  that  it  was  a  much  greater  pity 
the  House  of  Commons  had  never  quite  caught  the  tone 
of  Mr.  Bright.  Such  may  be  set  down  as  the  decisive 
comment  of  history  at  this  day.  No  House  of  Commons 
has  ever  caught,  or  is  ever  likely  to  catch,  the  tone  of 
Mr.  Bright.  We  cannot  expect  to  have  large  popular 
assemblies  made  up  of  great  orators  like  John  Bright. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SIB    STAFFOED    NOBTHCOTE 

IN  writing  about  the  public  man  who  was  the  original 
of  the  portrait  illustrating  this  chapter,  I  have  pre- 
ferred to  call  him  by  the  name  which  was  for  so  many 
years  familiar  to  us.  I  write  of  him  as  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  although  we  all  know  that  towards  the  close 
of  his  career  he  was  raised  to  the  peerage  and  became 
the  Earl  of  Iddesleigh.  Those  who  knew  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  as  a  leading  parliamentary  debater  holding 
high  office  in  successive  administrations  never  could 
have  known  the  man  at  his  best.  I  have  always  re- 
garded Stafford  IsTorthcote  as  a  genuine  statesman,  but 
of  course  an  outsider  cannot  know  how  far  the  policy  of 
a  ministry  or  a  party  is  originated  or  guided  by  any 
particular  one  of  its  leading  members.  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  was  not  the  self-asserting  personage  who  is 
always  sure  to  proclaim  in  some  way  or  other  that  his 
is  the  guiding  influence  and  the  mainspring  of  every 
movement  made  by  those  associated  with  him. 

Stafford  Northcote  was  an  effective  and  a  ready 
parliamentary  debater,  but  he  had  nothing  of  the  orator 
in  him,  and  even  among  the  parliamentary  debaters  of 
his  time  he  did  not  take  a  commanding  place.  A  stran- 
ger visiting  the  House  of  Commons  might  have  heard 
him  speak  night  after  night  and  have  only  got  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  a  ready  and  fluent  speaker  who 
could  put  his  arguments  with  clearness  and  with  force. 

88 


SIR   STAFFORD    NORTHCOTE 

Those  who  came  to  know  the  man  himself  in  private 
intercourse  soon  found  that  he  was  a  thinker,  a  scholar, 
and  a  humorist,  who  had  a  keen  artistic  appreciation 
of  pictures  and  statues,  of  books  and  music,  and  was 
a  close  student  of  many  literatures,  a  shrewd  and 
penetrating  observer  of  men  and  life.  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  be  brought  soon  after  my  election  to  Parlia- 
ment into  a  friendly  personal  relationship  with  North- 
cote  which  lasted  during  many  years.  I  met  him  often 
in  private  society,  and  have  the  most  delightful  recol- 
lections of  long  talks  with  him  on  all  manner  of  sub- 
jects. 

Northcote  was  a  great  lover  of  books,  and  was  es- 
pecially well  acquainted  with  that  literature  which  too 
many  Englishmen  neglect — the  literature  of  Shake- 
speare's time  which  is  not  the  creation  of  Shakespeare — 
the  works  of  Ben  Jonson,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
Massinger,  and  the  rest.  He  was  familiar  with  all  the 
great  English  novelists,  and  appeared  to  have  a  wonder- 
ful memory  for  every  book  he  had  read  with  interest. 
For  him  nothing  in  literature  was  old-fashioned  or  new- 
fashioned  ;  he  was  just  as  much  at  home  with  Fielding 
and  Smollett  as  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  He  had  a 
charming  vein  of  humor,  and  could  illumine  any  sub- 
ject in  conversation  with  his  bright  flashes  of  playful 
wit.  He  was  glad  to  escape  as  much  as  possible  in 
private  life  from  the  serious  business  of  politics,  and 
seemed  never  more  at  his  ease  and  happy  than  when  the 
conversation  turned  wholly  on  books  or  pictures  or 
the  drama.  He  was  fond  of  theatrical  performances, 
and  the  opening  night  of  a  new  piece  at  any  of  the 
great  London  theatres  was  almost  certain  to  have  him 
and  Lady  Northcote  among  its  audience.  When  the 
talk  was  on  political  questions  it  was  delightful  to  ob- 
serve how,  by  a  few  easy  and  humorous  phrases,  he 

89 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

was  able  to  touch  off  the  weaknesses  and  foibles  of  some 
pretentious  personage  who  had  chosen  to  fancy  him- 
self an  important  figure  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
His  satire  was  not  unkindly,  had  nothing  in  it  of  bitter- 
ness, but  it  was  apt  and  bright  and  penetrating.  He 
could  take  the  measure  of  a  man  with  a  readiness  and 
a  precision  which  I  have  seldom  found  equalled,  and 
he  was  as  quick  and  as  willing  to  recognize  real  merit 
as  to  analyze  self-satisfied  pretension.  Northcote  never 
allowed  political  antagonism  to  influence  his  personal 
relations  with  other  men,  and  this  habit  in  him  seemed 
to  come  not  from  any  studied  resolve  to  cultivate  im- 
partiality, but  to  be  the  result  of  his  natural  kindness 
and  the  liberality  of  his  mind.  Whenever  I  had  a 
fortunate  opportunity  of  talking  with  him  our  talk 
generally  turned  on  books  and  on  literature,  and  I  have 
never  heard  more  interesting  and  suggestive  criticisms 
than  some  of  those  which  came  from  him.  Even  while 
some  exciting  debate  was  going  on  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons I  have  often  noticed  that  if  we  happened  to  meet 
in  one  of  the  dining-rooms,  Northcote  could  at  once  de- 
tach his  mind  from  the  strife  of  politics  and  show  him- 
self thoroughly  interested  in  some  new  book  or  some  new 
theory  of  art.  I  have  often  thought  that  if  the  force 
of  events  and  habitudes  had  not  impelled  him  into  po- 
litical life  he  might  have  made  for  himself  a  distin- 
guished name  in  literature.  He  did,  in  fact,  publish  a 
work  on  financial  policy  and  a  volume  of  lectures  and 
essays  which  find  their  readers  still,  but  the  fates  had 
ordained  that  he  was  to  be  a  political  leader,  and  we 
may  assume  that  the  kindly  fates  knew  what  was  best 
for  him  and  best  for  us. 

During  his  Oxford  career  Stafford  Northcote  won 
high  distinction  in  classics — the  classics  which  in  his 
busy  after-life  he  always  loved  and  often  studied.  In 

90 


SIR    STAFFORD    NORTHCOTE 

his  early  manhood  he  became  private  secretary  to  Mr. 
Gladstone,  who  was  then,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  a  con- 
servative politician,  and  one  can  well  understand  how 
such  an  occupation  under  such  a  man  must  have  served 
him  as  the  most  valuable  training  for  that  work  of 
financial  administration  in  which  he  afterwards  came 
to  hold  so  high  a  place.  He  was  called  to  the  Bar,  but 
never  really  took  to  the  profession,  and  in  1855  he 
entered  the  House  of  Commons  for  the  first  time. 
Some  of  my  readers  will  probably  remember  that  in 
1871,  when  the  Alabama  had  led  to  serious  difficulties 
between  England  and  the  United  States,  and  the  ar- 
rangements were  in  progress  for  the  Geneva  Conven- 
tion, which  was  to  settle  the  dispute,  Sir  Stafford  North- 
cote  was  one  of  the  three  commissioners  sent  by  the 
British  government  to  Washington  for  the  purpose  of 
conducting  the  negotiations.  The  other  British  com- 
missioners were  the  Marquis  of  Ripon  and  Professor 
Mountague  Bernard,  of  Oxford.  I  happened  to  be  in 
New  York  at  the  time,  and  I  well  remember  seeing 
Sir  Stafford  Northcote  and  his  col-leagues  at  a  great 
banquet  given  to  them  by  my  late  friend,  Cyrus  W. 
Field.  It  is  certain  that  Northcote  rendered  the  most 
valuable  services  in  the  negotiations  which  brought 
that  memorable  dispute  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion. 
His  appointment  to  the  commission  took  place  under 
the  administration  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone no  doubt  had  the  best  reason  to  know  how  well 
fitted  by  his  ability,  his  thorough  impartiality,  and  his 
genial  temperament  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  was  for  so 
delicate  and  difficult  a  task. 

I  need  not  follow  in  systematic  detail  the  progress  of 
Northcote's  subsequent  parliamentary  career.  He  re- 
mained always  a  member  of  the  conservative  party, 
although  there  were  many  questions  on  which  so  ad- 

^ 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

vanced  and  enlightened  a  thinker  could  not  always 
have  been  in  complete  sympathy  with  some  of  his  col- 
leagues and  a  large  proportion  of  their  followers.  On 
subjects  belonging  to  foreign  policy,  where  the  party 
lines  of  English  public  life  could  not  be  rigidly  main- 
tained or  even  traced  out,  Northcote  made  many  a 
speech  which  might  have  come  as  appropriately  and  as 
effectively  from  the  liberal  as  from  the  conservative 
benches.  He  held  the  office  of  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer in  Disraeli's  government,  and  when  Disraeli  went 
to  the  Upper  House  he  became  leader  of  the  party  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  raised  to  the  peerage 
in  1885,  and  then  was  made  First  Lord  of  the  Treas- 
ury. When  Lord  Salisbury  came  into  office  for  the 
second  time  Northcote  was  induced  to  accept  the  posi- 
tion of  Foreign  Secretary,  but  he  held  that  position 
only  for  a  short  period,  and  then  suddenly  resigned 
office.  Every  one  must  remember  his  sudden  death  at 
Lord  Salisbury's  official  residence  in  Downing  Street 
on  January  12,  188Y. 

Stafford  Northcote's  death  was  in  every  sense  a 
tragedy.  It  was  well  known  that  new  influences  were 
coming  into  power  among  the  conservative  leaders  at 
that  time,  and  that  Northcote's  friends  believed  him 
to  have  been  treated  unfairly  by  his  party,  or  at  least 
by  those  who  were  then  put  in  control  of  the  party. 
The  general  impression  was  that  Northcote  had  been 
pushed  aside  on  the  coming  of  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill  to  hold  a  high  place  in  the  party,  and  we  who 
were  then  in  the  House  of  Commons  well  knew  that 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  and  Northcote  were  not 
likely  to  work  together  harmoniously  under  such  con- 
ditions. It  is  an  old  and  a  sad  story  of  which  we  shall 
probably  never  know  the  whole  truth  until  some  com- 
ing Greville  Memoirs  shall  give  us  the  whole  story.  I 

92 


SIB    STAFFORD    NORTHCOTE 

was  then  in  the  United  States,  and  only  read  of  these 
events  in  the  newspapers,  and  I  felt  the  thrill  of  a 
most  sincere  grief  when  I  learned  that  such  a  career 
had  been  closed  so  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  and 
under  such  conditions.  He  was  still  regarded  as  a  man 
well  qualified  to  exercise  a  healthful  influence  over  the 
political  life  of  his  country,  and  his  sudden  death 
seemed  to  leave  a  blank  not  likely  soon  to  be  filled 
up.  A  conservative  government  was  then  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  called  upon  to  be  an  active,  watchful 
government,  and  under  these  circumstances  it  appear- 
ed to  all  impartial  observers  that  a  man  like  Stafford 
Northcote  would  have  been  of  inestimable  value  in  the 
education  of  his  party  to  meet  the  new  and  changed 
conditions  of  political  life.  Northcote  was  much  in 
advance  of  his  party  in  what  may  be  called  general 
political  intelligence  and  instruction,  and  if  he  had 
lived  and  been  allowed  to  exercise  his  due  influence,  he 
might  have  been  able  to  bring  that  party  into  a  better 
understanding  of  the  popular  demands  which  were 
coming  up  for  settlement.  His  death,  though  sudden 
and  at  the  time  quite  unlocked  for,  could  not  be  called 
premature,  but  the  wish  of  the  whole  country  would 
have  been  that  the  close  of  his  life  should  be  crowned 
with  a  distinct  success  and  should  not  have  been  asso- 
ciated with  misunderstanding,  disappointment,  and 
failure. 

Northcote  could  not  have  been  called  a  great  states- 
man any  more  than  he  could  have  been  called  a  great 
parliamentary  orator.  But  his  disappearance  from  life 
was  unquestionably  a  great  loss  to  Parliament.  No 
man  in  either  House  enjoyed  more  fully  the  confidence 
and  the  respect  of  all  political  parties.  I  cannot  believe 
that  he  could  ever  have  made  a  personal  enemy,  or  that 
he  could  ever  have  lost  a  sincere  friend.  No  man  could 

93 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

have  been  more  truly  considerate  in  his  dealings  with 
his  political  opponents.  During  the  fiercest  contro- 
versies he  never  lost  his  self-control,  his  good  temper, 
or  his  courteous  way  of  meeting  his  antagonists.  In  the 
House  of  Commons  it  had  been  well  known  for  some 
time  that  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  and  his  immediate 
followers  had  grown  impatient  of  Northcote's  want  of 
initiative,  his  willingness  to  listen  to  compromise,  and 
his  lack  of  the  genuine  fighting  spirit.  When  Lord 
Randolph  was  still  leading  his  followers  of  the  small 
Fourth  party  we  were  all  allowed  to  see  the  evidences 
of  this  growing  impatience.  Lord  Randolph  was  in  the 
habit  of  describing,  after  his  characteristic  fashion, 
Northcote  and  certain  other  members  of  the  conserva- 
tive administration  as  "  the  old  gang,"  and  there  could 
have  been  little  doubt  that  if  Lord  Randolph  should 
come  into  power  he  was  not  likely  to  get  on  very  well 
with  such  a  man  for  his  leader.  Lord  Randolph's  own 
administrative  career  came  to  an  end  soon  after,  and 
indeed  the  whole  of  his  active  career  in  Parliament  did 
not  last  long,  but  was  brought  to  a  premature  close  by 
his  too  early  death.  It  is  only  right  to  say  that  dur- 
ing his  short  period  of  administration  Lord  Randolph 
developed  qualities  which  showed  that  he  might,  under 
happier  auspices  and  with  better  health,  have  come  to 
be  a  financial  minister  of  a  very  high  order. 

I  have,  of  course,  been  anticipating  events  and  have 
wandered  far  away  from  the  days  of  the  early  sixties, 
but  the  mere  study  of  Sir  Stafford  oSTorthcote's  portrait 
has  led  me  naturally  into  a  consideration  of  the  man's 
whole  career  and  the  futile  thought  of  what  might 

have  been  under  different  conditions.  I  may  now, 
,  » 

however,  retrace  my  steps  and  return  to  that  period  of 
Sir  Stafford  Northcote's  life  which  is  illustrated  by  his 
picture,  and  in  which  he  made  so  conspicuous  and  so 

94 


SIR    STAFFORD    NORTHCOTE 

attractive  a  figure  in  the  House  of  Commons.  My  own 
impression  at  that  time  was  that  Northcote  seemed 
qualified  and  destined  either  to  lead  his  own  party  into 
a  recognition  of  the  growing  changes  in  political  life 
which  were  making  the  old-fashioned  toryism  a  thing 
of  the  past,  or  to  become  a  leading  influence  among  the 
Liberals  who  were  determined  to  go  forward  and  to 
accept  the  real  principles  of  political  freedom.  One 
can  well  understand  why  the  Conservatives  of  the  older 
school,  the  school  which  would  not  be  educated,  should 
have  found  little  satisfaction  in  the  leadership  of  so 
thoughtful  and  so  far-seeing  a  statesman  as  Northcote, 
and  even  in  the  early  sixties  many  evidences  of  this  fact 
were  already  making  themselves  apparent.  ISTorthcote 
had  little  or  no  respect  for  the  antiquated  forms  of 
partisan  administration;  he  did  not  pledge  his  faith 
to  any  traditional  policy;  and  the  inherited  war-cries 
of  his  party  could  never  have  inspired  him  with  a  com- 
bative enthusiasm.  He  was  above  all  things  a  thinking 
man,  and  a  thinking  man  was  not  just  then  well  quali- 
fied to  command  the  allegiance  of  the  Conservatives 
who  represented  county  constituencies.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  had  evidently  not  the  power  of  initiative 
which  enables  a  man  to  dictate  a  new  policy  and  create 
a  new  party. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  for  many  years  after 
his  first  entrance  into  Parliament  there  were  in  the 
House  of  Commons  many  men  among  whom  it  was 
very  hard  for  a  new-comer  to  make  a  distinguished 
name.  This  will  account  for  the  fact  that  even  after 
he  had  come  to  hold  important  office  in  an  administra- 
tion his  name  was  but  little  known  to  the  general  pub- 
lic outside.  It  must  have  been  a  clear  appreciation  of 
his  actual  capacity  for  a  high  office  in  parliamentary 
work  which  inspired  the  leaders  of  his  party  to  accept 

95 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE   SIXTIES 

him,  in  advance  of  the  public  judgment,  as  one  well 
fitted  to  hold  the  place  of  minister  of  the  crown. 
Knowing  what  we  now  know  of  him  as  an  administra- 
tor, we  are  not  surprised  that  some  at  least  of  his  leaders 
and  his  colleagues  should  have  discerned  his  genuine 
capacity,  but  it  is  certain  that  surprise  was  felt  by  the 
general  public  when  he  was  raised  to  a  place  in  the 
ministry.  That  was  a  time  when  the  House  of  Com- 
mons had  reached  its  highest  position  as  a  chamber  of 
debate.  We  have  now  no  such  array  of  eloquent  and 
powerful  speakers  in  the  House  as  those  who  were  then 
in  rivalry  night  after  night  for  the  highest  honors  in 
parliamentary  debate.  The  liberal  benches  have  now 
no  orator  to  compare  with  Gladstone ;  the  tory  benches 
do  not  make  the  slightest  pretension  to  any  such  mas- 
tery of  debating  powers  as  those  which  were  displayed 
by  Disraeli.  Palmerston  had  reached  the  highest  point 
of  his  success  as  a  party  leader  and  as  a  man  who  could 
play  upon  all  the  moods  of  the  House  with  the  skill  of 
an  accomplished  artist.  The  independent  Liberals 
were  represented  by  Cobden  and  Bright — Cobden, 
whose  eloquence  had  a  persuasive  charm  of  argument, 
illustration,  and  telling  phrase  which  went  home  to  the 
reasoning  faculties  of  his  audience;  Bright,  who  was 
probably,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest  orator  whom  the 
House  has  known  in  modern  times.  Then  there  were 
such  men  as  Roebuck  and  Horsman,  as  Cockburn  and 
Whiteside,  as  Sir  Hugh  Cairns  and  Lord  John  Man- 
ners, and  many  others  who  must  have  been  regarded  as 
brilliant  debaters  in  any  parliamentary  assembly.  The 
level  of  political  eloquence  was  then  beyond  question 
much  higher  than  it  has  been  in  days  nearer  to  our 
own,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  under  such  condi- 
tions Sir  Stafford  Northcote  should  have  failed,  dur- 
ing the  earlier  years  of  his  parliamentary  career,  to 

96 


SIR    STAFFORD    NORTHCOTE 

win  for  himself  a  distinct  and  a  distinguished  reputa- 
tion. 

In  the  sixties,  therefore,  Northcote  was  still  only  a 
man  with  a  name  to  make,  and  the  portrait  of  him 
which  is  seen  in  these  pages  must  be  regarded  as  that 
of  a  beginner  whose  intimate  friends  alone  could  fore- 
see his  ultimate  success.  That  success  was  never  won 
by  splendid  and  sudden  displays,  but  was  the  gradual 
result  of  steady  work  and  unpretentious  administrative 
capacity.  But  it  must  be  owned  that  Northcote  always 
proved  himself  eminently  qualified  for  every  task  he 
set  himself  to  accomplish,  and  even  on  occasions  of 
great  debate  he  never  failed  to  secure  a  fair  and  full 
appreciation  from  the  House  of  Commons.  I  was  a 
close  and  constant  observer  of  parliamentary  life  for 
many  years  before  I  had  a  chance  of  obtaining  a  seat 
in  the  House,  and  there  were  few  men  whose  speeches 
I  could  follow  with  deeper  interest  than  those  delivered 
by  Northcote.  He  never  threw  away  a  sentence;  he 
never  wasted  his  debating  power  in  mere  redundancy 
of  words.  The  listener  was  afraid  to  lose  a  single  word, 
lest  by  its  loss  he  should  miss  some  important  link  of 
the  argument.  He  could  illustrate  even  the  most 
prosaic  subject  by  his  apt  and  happy  comparisons  drawn 
from  the  most  varied  sources  of  history  and  literature 
and  keen,  practical  observation.  He  had  a  marvellous 
skill  in  appropriate  quotation,  and  I  do  not  remember 
to  have  ever  heard  him  introduce  any  citation  which 
was  not  new,  fresh,  and  precisely  adapted  to  give  point 
to  his  argument.  He  never  overdid  anything;  never 
strained  after  effect;  and  always  gave  one  the  refresh- 
ing idea  that  the  resources  of  the  speaker  were  not  ex- 
hausted. No  one  needs  to  be  told  how  the  attention  of 
the  listener  begins  to  flag  from  the  moment  when  he 
finds  that  a  speaker  is  overtasking  his  powers,  and  is 
7  97 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

continuing  his  speech  only  because  he  fancies  it  is  due 
to  the  occasion  that  he  should  endeavor  to  make  a  great 
display.  The  listener  never  felt  any  such  uncomfort- 
able sensation  while  Northcote  was  addressing  the 
House,  and,  on  the  contrary,  the  general  feeling  was 
that  he  might  have  gone  farther  and  fared  even  better. 
We  may  hope  to  have  greater  orators  than  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  in  the  time  to  come,  as  we  had  in  the  time 
which  is  passed,  but  we  shall  not  have  many  men  who 
could  better  command  on  an  important  occasion  the 
unbroken  attention  of  such  an  assembly  as  the  House 
of  Commons. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

EDWARD  BAINES  was  a  typical  figure  in  the  days 
which  the  portraits  in  this  volume  bring  back  to  mem- 
ory. He  was  a  hard-working,  most  attentive,  much- 
respected  member  of  the  House  of  Commons.  I  can 
well  remember  his  pale,  clear-cut  face,  his  white  hair, 
and  his  expression  of  earnest  and  unchanging  purpose. 
He  belonged  expressly  to  that  body  of  men  who  were 
known  in  the  sixties,  and  for  long  after,  as  the  "  private 
members."  That  was,  of  course,  but  the  colloquial  de- 
scription of  this  class  of  representatives.  If  any  one 
were  writing  about  the  men  who  made  up  that  class 
or  were  speaking  about  them  in  a  formal  way,  he  would 
have  described  them  as.  independent  members  in  the 
language  which  would  be  applied  to  them  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  These  men  may  be  classified  as  members  of 
the  House  of  Commons  who,  although  belonging  con- 
sistently to  the  one  great  political  party  or  to  the  other, 
were  yet  each  of  them  resolved  to  maintain  the  inter- 
ests of  some  particular  cause  no  matter  whether  it  were 
supported  by  the  government  or  by  the  party  in  opposi- 
tion. One  man  had  pledged  himself  heart  and  soul  to 
some  great  political  reform,  such  as  an  extension  of 
the  franchise,  for  instance;  another  was  above  all 
things  a  champion  of  religious  equality;  a  third  was 
"  peace  at  any  price,"  or,  at  all  events,  an  opponent 
of  all  wars  not  purely  and  strictly  defensive ;  a  fourth 

99 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

was  for  additional  legislation  to  restrict  the  power  of 
the  Papacy  and  the  Jesuits  in  the  British  empire. 
Such  men  might  be  found  at  either  side  of  the  House, 
although  of  the  types  which  I  have  mentioned,  the  first, 
second,  and  third  might  be  looked  for.  with  greater 
certainty  among  the  ranks  of  the  Liberals,  and  the 
fourth  among  the  ranks  of  the  Tories. 

But  on  whatever  side  the  independent  member  sat,  it 
might  be  taken  for  granted  that  he  had  come  into  the 
House  of  Commons  with  the  view  of  making  the  advo- 
cacy of  some  particular  cause  the  main  business  of  his 
parliamentary  life.  If  he  belonged  politically  to  the 
party  in  power,  and  the  leaders  of  that  party  would  not 
give  any  help  to  his  cause,  then  he  was  prepared  to 
vote  against  them  in  any  division  which  turned  upon 
that  particular  question.  If  the  party  in  opposition 
suddenly  professed  a  favoring  inclination  for  his  cause, 
he  would  be  ready  to  vote  with  them  even  though  the 
division  might  involve  a  possible  defeat  of  the  ministry. 
This  devotion  of  the  independent  member  to  his  cause 
or  his  crotchet  or  his  craze,  according  as  it  might  hap- 
pen to  be  described  from  different  points  of  view,  was 
thoroughly  understood  by  all  parties  in  the  House,  and 
the  independent  member  was  regarded  even  by  the 
party  leaders  and  Whips  with  a  certain  amount  of 
toleration  as  one  of  the  unavoidable  inconveniences  at- 
taching to  the  representative  system.  There  are  many 
independent  members  in  the  House  of  Commons  to- 
day, but  they  do  not  seem  to  me  to  constitute  so  dis- 
tinct and  peculiar  an  element  of  parliamentary  life  as 
they  did  in  the  good  old  times  when  national  repre- 
sentation and  national  education  still  had  to  find  their 
most  persistent  champions  among  the  men  who  pre- 
ferred the  promotion  of  some  particular  cause  to  the 
political  interests  of  either  party.  The  independent 

100 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

member  at  his  highest  level  was  then  the  far-seeing 
advocate  of  some  great  reform  which  had  yet  to  be 
accepted  and  adopted  by  the  leaders  of  either  the  gov- 
ernment or  the  opposition,  and  in  his  lowest  degree 
he  was  no  worse  than  the  representative  of  some  new- 
fangled crotchet  or  some  form  of  antiquated  fanaticism. 

Edward  Baines  was  one  of  those  who  belonged  to  the 
best  order  of  the  independent  member.  He  came  from 
the  north  of  England,  and  was  educated  at  one  of  the 
schools  of  the  dissenting  bodies  in  Manchester.  His 
father  was  one  of  the  most  influential  men  of  his  time 
in  the  north  of  England,  and  was  owner  and  conductor 
of  the  Leeds  Mercury,  then  as  now  a  powerful  organ 
of  public  opinion.  Edward  Baines,  the  son,  was 
known  as  the  author  of  some  important  works  on  the 
history  of  the  cotton  manufacture  and  the  woollen 
manufacture  of  England,  and  he  did  not  enter  the 
House  of  Commons  until  comparatively  late  in  life. 
He  was  in  his  fifty-ninth  year  when  he  became  one  of 
the  members  for  Leeds.  It  used  to  be  a  sort  of  axiom 
at  one  time  that  no  man  ever  made  a  success  in  the 
House  who  had  reached  his  fortieth  year  before  obtain- 
ing the  right  to  occupy  a  seat  there.  Most  assuredly 
Edward  Baines  never  gained  a  distinguished  position 
as  a  debater  in  the  House,  but  I  do  not  believe  he  could 
have  acquired  any  such  reputation  even  if  he  had  ob- 
tained a  seat  at  as  early  a  period  of  life  as  that  of 
Charles  James  Fox  when  he  first  entered  Parliament. 

Edward  Baines  never,  so  far  as  I  have  heard  or 
known,  had  the  slightest  ambition  for  the  renown  of  a 
great  parliamentary  debater.  He  came  into  Parlia- 
ment for  the  especial  purpose  of  advocating  certain  re- 
forms which  he  had  deeply  at  heart,  and  he  never  took 
the  trouble  to  make  a  speech  on  any  subject  which  did 
not  come  within  his  own  particular  and  practical  sphere. 

101 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

He  was  a  clear  and  argumentative  speaker,  and  any  one 
who  took  the  slightest  interest  in  the  subject  on  which 
he  was  addressing  the  house  could  not  fail  to  be  im- 
pressed by  his  earnestness,  by  his  well-ordered  array  of 
facts  and  arguments  bearing  on  that  question,  and  by 
the  directness  of  his  appeals  to  the  intelligence  of  his 
listeners.  It  would  be  rather  too  much  to  say  that  he 
could  always  hold  the  House,  because  for  one  reason 
a  large  number  of  the  members  then  attending  the 
House  took  no  manner  of  interest  in  any  of  the  sub- 
jects on  which  he  spoke,  and  never  would  have  thought 
of  leaving  the  dining-room,  the  smoking-room,  or  the 
library  to  go  in  and  listen  to  one  of  his  speeches.  But 
it  may  fairly  be  said  of  him  that  he  could  always  com- 
mand the  close  attention  of  that  proportion  of  the 
members  who  felt  any  genuine  interest  in  the  measures 
of  reform  which  he  was  especially  concerned  in  advo- 
cating. 

Tuesday  was  then  the  only  day  when  a  private  mem- 
ber had  any  chance  of  bringing  a  motion  of  his  own 
before  the  House.  It  required  courage,  perseverance, 
and  a  devoted  sense  of  duty  to  keep  a  man  up  to  the 
work  of  bringing  such  motions  forward  with  the  cer- 
tainty before  him  that  he  must  be  defeated  by  a  large 
majority,  even  if  he  could  prevail  upon  his  friends  to 
rally  round  him  at  the  critical  moment  and  save  him 
from  the  humiliation  of  a  "  count-out."  The  private 
member,  if  he  were  also  an  independent  member,  has 
been  through  whole  generations  the  pioneer  of  every 
great  measure  of  reform  in  political,  municipal,  indus- 
trial, and  educational  affairs  afterwards  adopted  by  a 
ministry  in  power  and  carried  into  triumphant  legisla- 
tion. There  were  some  men  in  the  House  during  the 
early  sixties  who  were  only  known  because  of  their 
persistent  advocacy,  year  after  year,  of  some  such  re- 

102 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

form,  and  for  many  sessions  each  annual  motion  and 
the  speech  which  introduced  it  seemed  to  be  little  more 
than  the  "  calling  aloud  to  solitude  "  which  Cervantes 
has  described  in  his  thrilling  words.  Edward  Baines 
was  for  a  long  time  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  the 
most  patient  among  the  small  number  who  were  thus 
devoted  to  the  persistent,  and  as  many  thought  the  hope- 
less, advocacy  of  reforms  which  have  long  since  been 
brought  to  success  by  some  powerful  ministry,  and  are 
now  regarded  as  integral  parts  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion. 

From  my  earliest  observation  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons I  always  felt  an  admiration  of  Edward  Baines 
for  his  unfailing  devotion,  amid  whatever  depressing 
conditions,  to  the  work  which  he  had  accepted  as  his 
business  in  Parliament.  He  was  but  a  short  time  in 
the  House  of  Commons  when  he  attempted  to  bring  in 
a  bill  for  the  reduction  of  the  franchise  in  boroughs  to 
a  six-pounds  qualification.  Need  I  say  that  his  motion 
was  rejected  by  a  large  majority?  Again  and  again 
in  succeeding  sessions  he  renewed  his  effort,  and  with 
the  same  result.  Only  a  short  time  had  to  elapse  be- 
fore a  much  wider  measure  of  reform  than  any  which 
Baines  had  ever  attempted  to  introduce  was  competed 
for,  if  I  may  thus  express  it,  by  the  two  great  rival 
parties  in  the  state,  and  was  actually  carried  by  Mr. 
Disraeli  and  the  tory  government.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  advanced  Radicals  whom  Edward  Baines  repre- 
sented in  the  House  of  Commons  had  a  much  larger 
following  outside,  and  more  especially  among  the  manu- 
facturing districts,  than  was  suspected  by  many  of  the 
unconcerned  legislators  who  never  troubled  themselves 
to  go  into  the  debating  chamber  when  Baines  was  bring- 
ing forward  his  annual  motion.  Baines  took  a  leading 
and  an  active  part  in  opposing  the  church-rates  system 

103 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

and  the  imposition  of  university  tests.  I  suppose  even 
steady-going  Tories  are  now  willing  to  admit  that  the 
British  Constitution  is  none  the  worse  for  the  sort  of 
legislation  which  Baines  was  accustomed  to  advocate. 

Edward  Baines  had  in  temperament  and  in  manner 
nothing  whatever  of  the  enthusiast,  so  far  as  a  mere 
observer  could  discern.  We  generally  associate  the 
idea  of  a  political  or  religious  reformer  with  that  of 
passionate  advocacy  and  thrilling  eloquence.  Baines 
seemed  to  go  at  his  parliamentary  work  with  a  sort  of 
chill  pertinacity  which  never  allowed  any  expression 
of  emotion  to  escape  from  him.  The  fire  of  an  orator 
could  no  more  be  expected  from  him  than  it  might  be 
expected  from  an  iceberg.  Not  even  a  flash  of  humor 
ever  came  from  him  in  his  parliamentary  speeches,  al- 
though his  personal  friends  well  knew  that  he  was  not 
austere  in  nature  and  that  his  heart  was  full  of  human 
sympathy.  By  most  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons he  was  regarded  rather  as  an  influence  than  as 
an  individual.  The  general  public  has  probably  for 
the  most  part  already  forgotten  to  associate  the  name 
of  Edward  Baines  with  some  of  the  great  reforms 
which  he  helped  to  carry  to  success,  but  in  the  history 
of  England's  political  and  educational  progress  during 
the  nineteenth  century  his  name  must  ever  have  an 
honorable  mention.  I  am  glad  to  have  an  opportunity 
of  paying  my  poor  personal  tribute  to  his  character  as 
a  man  and  his  services  as  a  reformer. 

Let  me  now  turn  to  the  portrait  of  a  very  different 
personage,  a  man  who  had,  perhaps,  nothing  in  common 
with  Edward  Baines  but  sincerity.  Baines  represented 
ideas  which  were  then  new  and  have  since  found  al- 
most universal  adoption;  G.  M.  Whalley  represented 
one  idea  which  was  becoming  antiquated  even  in  his 
day — and  is  now  only  preserved  as  a  curiosity  in  mem- 

104 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

ory's  museum.  Whalley  devoted  his  whole  parliamen- 
tary career  to  a  war  against  popery  in  general  and  the 
Jesuits  in  particular.  The  receptacle  which  I  suppose 
must  be  described  as  his  mind  was  entirely  occupied, 
to  all  seeming,  by  this  one  idea.  I  cannot  say  that  he 
never  made  a  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  any 
other  subject,  but  I  can  positively  assert  that  if  he 
ever  did  deliver  such  a  speech  I  had  not  the  good 
fortune  to  hear  it.  Whalley  was  absolutely  and  inex- 
tricably associated  in  the  thoughts  of  the  House  and 
the  public  with  the  machinations  of  the  Jesuits.  Whal- 
ley's  eloquence  and  the  Jesuits'  craft  floated  double  in 
the  parliamentary  stream  like  the  swan  and  shadow 
of  St.  Mary's  lake.  He  had  always  some  new  question 
to  put  to  the  government  with  regard  to  the  latest  plots 
of  the  Jesuits  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Protestant 
dynasty  in  England  and  for  the  subjection  of  every 
English  household  to  the  dictation  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  He  was  ever  seeking  and  planning  for  some 
opportunity  to  bring  before  the  House  a  formal  motion 
on  the  subject,  and  when  he  did  secure  a  hearing  for 
his  motion  the  debate  was  generally  brought  to  a  prema- 
ture end  by  a  "  count-out,"  this  being  no  doubt,  in  poor 
Whalley's  mind,  another  successful  stroke  of  policy  on 
the  part  of  the  malignant  Jesuits. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  the  House  of  Commons  paid 
but  little  attention  to  the  warnings,  the  arguments,  and 
the  appeals  of  Whalley.  The  moment  he  rose  in  his 
place  everybody  knew  already  what  he  was  going  to 
talk  about,  and  this  of  itself  was  enough  to  settle  his 
chance  of  a  good  audience.  "  I  fear  the  man  of  one 
book  "  is  a  classic  proverb,  but  "  I  fear  the  man  of  one 
topic  "  would  express,  although  in  a  somewhat  different 
sense,  the  general  sentiment  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Whalley,  however,  did  not  seem  to  care  whether  the 

105 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

House  paid  any  attention  to  what  he  was  saying  or  not, 
and  indeed  I  do  not  know  how  he  could  ever  have  had 
any  experience  of  an  attentive  audience,  at  least  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Most  of  the  members  left  the  de- 
bating chamber  as  a  matter  of  course  the  moment  Whal- 
ley  rose  to  offer  his  observations  on  the  familiar  topic, 
and  I  have  heard  him  more  than  once  as  he  delivered 
his  speech  to  the  Speaker,  the  clerks  at  the  table,  one 
or  two  members,  and  the  visitors  who  happened  to  be  in 
the  Strangers'  Galleries.  It  was  all  the  same  to  Whal- 
ley — he  believed  that  he  had  a  duty  to  do,  and  he  did  it 
without  regard  to  persons. 

On  one  occasion  while  the  Conservatives  were  in 
power  Whalley  put  a  question  to  Disraeli,  then  leading 
the  House,  calling  on  him  to  say  whether  her  Majesty's 
ministers  had  lately  received  any  new  information  with 
regard  to  the  present  machinations  of  the  Jesuits 
against  the  Established  Church  of  England.  I  may 
be  allowed  to  quote  from  my  own  Reminiscences 
my  recollection  of  what  followed  the  question.  "  Dis- 
raeli arose,  and,  leaning  on  the  table  in  front  of  him, 
began  with  a  manner  of  portentous  gravity  and  a  coun- 
tenance of  almost  funereal  gloom  to  give  his  answer. 
'  Her  Majesty's  ministers,'  he  said,  '  had  not  been  in- 
formed of  any  absolutely  new  machinations  of  the 
Jesuits,  but  they  would  continue  to  watch,  as  they  had 
hitherto  watched,  for  any  indication  of  such  insidious 
enterprises.  One  of  the  favorite  machinations  of  the 
Jesuits,'  he  went  on  to  say,  with  deepening  solemnity, 
'  had  always  been  understood  to  be  a  plan  for  sending 
into  this  country  disguised  emissaries  of  their  own, 
who,  by  expressing  extravagant  and  ridiculous  alarm 
about  Jesuit  plots,  might  bring  public  derision  on  the 
efforts  of  the  genuine  supporters  of  the  state  Church. 
He  would  not  venture  to  say  whether  the  honorable 

106 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

member  had  knowledge  of  any  such  plans  as  that — 
but  here  a  roar  of  laughter  from  the  whole  House 
rendered  further  explanation  impossible,  and  Disraeli 
composedly  resumed  his  seat." 

I  had  many  talks  with  Whalley  in  private,  and  I 
always  found  him  good-humored  and  companionable. 
He  knew,  of  course,  that  my  religious  and  political 
views  were  entirely  out  of  accord  with  his,  but  he  did 
not  on  that  account  refuse  to  interchange  friendly 
words  now  and  then.  Perhaps  he  did  not  think  that 
nature  had  provided  me  with  intellectual  gifts  likely 
to  make  me  a  very  dangerous  emissary  in  the  service 
of  the  Jesuit  plotters,  but  whatever  may  have  been  his 
reason  I  can  only  say  that  I  always  found  him  tolerant 
and  agreeable.  I  had,  indeed,  a  sort  of  personal  liking 
for  Whalley,  and  I  never  felt  any  doubt  of  his  simple 
sincerity  in  the  cause  to  which  he  devoted  such  a  large 
proportion  of  his  laborious  days  and  nights.  I  do  not 
suppose  there  is  any  member  of  the  House  of  Commons 
now  who  holds  a  like  position.  One  can  hardly  help 
feeling  a  certain  sort  of  admiration  for  the  man  who 
could  thus  go  on  session  after  session  delivering 
speeches  to  which  no  one  cared  to  listen — speeches  to 
which  he  could  but  know  that  no  one  cared  to  listen — 
merely  because  he  felt  himself  compelled  by  a  perverse 
sense  of  duty  to  proclaim  his  opinions  on  every  possible 
opportunity  to  an  empty  House  and  an  unconcerned 
public.  I  have  thought  it  well  to  put  these  two  men, 
Edward  Baines  and  G.  M.  Whalley,  into  immediate 
contrast.  Both  men  were  sincere  and  both  were  acting 
alike  in  obedience  to  an  unselfish  sense  of  duty.  But 
the  one  man  was  born  to  be  the  advocate  of  great  re- 
forms, and  the  other  was  but  the  belated  exponent  of  a 
forgotten  policy.  Edward  Baines  had  remedies  to  offer 
for  the  evils  which  he  sought  to  remove ;  poor  Whalley 

107 


could  only  bring  for  the  removal  of  what  he  believed 
to  be  the  perils  of  the  state  a  sort  of  mediaeval  in- 
cantation. 

I  ought  to  say  that  in  arranging  this  parliamentary 
group  I  am  not  assuming  or  suggesting  that  any  bond 
of  sympathy,  or  even  of  habitual  association,  brought 
together  the  men  whom  I  am  now  describing.  I  do 
not  know  that  these  men  were  ever  brought  into  com- 
radeship of  any  kind  beyond  the  comradeship  created 
for  them  by  the  mere  fact  that  they  all  happened  to  be 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons  at  the  period  with 
which  I  am  now  dealing.  I  have  chosen  the  figures 
in  this  group  because  each  had  an  individuality  peculi- 
arly his  own.  The  first  thought  which  the  name  of 
any  one  of  them  brought  up  to  the  mind  of  an  observer 
at  the  time  was  not  that  of  a  man  identified  with  any 
of  the  great  political  parties,  but  rather  that  of  a  man 
who  had  a  cause  of  his  own,  or  it  might  be  a  crotchet 
of  his  own,  or  at  all  events  a  peculiar  and  separate 
identity  which  marked  him  out.  Nor  am  I  suggesting 
by  any  means  that  the  men  stood  upon  a  level  in  the 
estimation  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Edward  Baines 
had  a  great  cause  to  which  he  was  devoted,  but  it  had 
not  at  that  time  been  officially  adopted  by  any  of  the 
recognized  parliamentary  parties.  Whalley  had  his 
crotchet  about  the  Jesuits  and  their  machinations,  and 
although  he  never  could  have  held  that  place  in  the 
estimation  of  the  House  which  was  deservedly  owned 
by  Baines,  he  was  at  least  a  peculiar  and  almost  isolated 
figure.  The  one  common  characteristic  of  my  group 
is  that  those  of  whom  for  my  purposes  I  have  composed 
it  were  men  who  had  each  a  distinct  individuality  and 
were  not  lost  in  the  crowd. 

I  am  afraid  that  the  portrait  of  "  J.  A.  Blake, 
M.P.,"  will  not  bring  to  my  readers  in  general  any 

108 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

immediate  and  accurate  recollection  of  the  man  whose 
picture  was  taken  in  the  early  sixties.  I  may  ask  those 
whose  associations  with  the  House  of  Commons  belong 
only  to  the  present  not  to  confound  him  with  my  friend 
Mr.  Edward  Blake,  who  for  many  years  held  a  com- 
manding position  in  the  Dominion  Parliament  of  Can- 
ada and  at  the  Canadian  Bar,  and  is  now  a  member  of 
the  Irish  national  party.  The  late  John  Aloysius 
Blake  was  an  Irish  member  of  Parliament  in  the  early 
sixties  when  I  first  came  to  know  him,  and  retained 
that  position  until  his  death  many  years  after.  J.  A. 
Blake  was  an  Irish  national  member  in  the  quiet  days 
when  the  late  Isaac  Butt  led  the  Irish  nationalist 
party,  before  the  strong,  stern  rule  of  Charles  Stewart 
Parnell  had  made  that  party  a  power  in  the  displace- 
ment of  English  governments  and  the  cause  of  Home 
Rule  a  question  of  paramount  interest  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  J.  A.  Blake  was  a  man  who  had  acquired 
large  means  in  business,  and  devoted  time,  for  the  most 
part,  to  his  parliamentary  work  as  an  Irish  representa- 
tive, and  the  remaining  part  to  the  gratification  for  his 
love  for  travel.  He  had  gained  experiences  in  travel 
unusual  for  a  member  of  Parliament  in  those  now  dis- 
tant days  before  world-wandering  had  become  part  of 
the  ordinary  education  of  men  who  could  afford  to 
spend  a  little  money.  He  had  made  himself  acquainted 
with  Canada  and  the  United  States,  with  the  Austra- 
lasian colonies,  and  with  many  parts  of  Asia  and 
Africa.  I  remember  that  in  later  years  his  attention 
was  much  attracted  by  some  descriptions  of  the  Cabul 
expedition  in  the  early  part  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign, 
long  before  he  himself  had  come  to  the  age  of  travel, 
and  he  made  it  his  business  to  survey  the  regions  of 
disaster.  His  especial  desire  was  to  see  and  study  the 
historic  Khyber  Pass,  and  he  devoted  his  time  and 

109 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

energy  to  a  long  journey  over  the  whole  historic  re- 
gion. 

Blake  was  a  humorist  in  many  ways,  a  most  delight- 
ful companion,  and  a  genial  host  who  loved  to  entertain 
his  friends  in  the  true  spirit  of  Irish  hospitality.  He 
did  not  often  speak  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but 
when  he  did  speak  he  was  always  listened  to,  for  he 
was  sure  to  entertain  the  House  with  some  amusing  and 
original  contribution  to  the  debate.  I  remember  that 
on  one  occasion  the  House  was  engaged  in  discussing 
some  question  which  brought  up  the  subject  of  racing 
and  hunting,  and  Blake  suddenly  enlivened  a  some- 
what dull  interchange  of  views  by  his  unexpected  way 
of  dealing  with  the  question.  He  told  the  House  that 
he  had  only  once,  since  he  had  come  to  mature  years, 
taken  part  in  a  fox-hunt.  Then,  he  went  on  to  say, 
he  was  lucky  enough  to  have  the  swiftest  horse  in  that 
part  of  the  country,  and  he  kept  well  at  the  front  of 
the  field.  The  House  listened  without  much  interest 
to  his  narrative  up  to  this  point.  It  was  not  surprising 
to  the  members  in  general  to  hear  that  an  Irish  member 
should  make  a  boast  of  having  had  the  best  horse  on 
the  country-side  at  a  fox-hunt,  and  that  he  had  kept 
well  in  front  of  all  rival  riders.  "  But,  Mr.  Speaker," 
Blake  suddenly  exclaimed,  "  I  rode  on  that  occasion 
entirely  in  the  interest  of  the  fox !"  Then  he  went  on 
to  explain  that  he  was,  on  principle,  a  resolute  opponent 
of  all  cruelty  to  animals ;  that  he  regarded  the  hunting 
even  of  the  fox  as  mere  cruelty ;  and  that  on  this  great 
occasion  of  his  exploit  in  the  hunting-field  he  had 
made  use  of  his  horse's  fleetness  and  of  his  own  riding 
powers  merely  in  order  to  take  care  that  the  persecuted 
Reynard  should  have  an  opportunity  of  escaping  from 
his  pursuers. 

The  tory  members  from  the  hunting  shires  broke 
110 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

into  furious  groans  of  wrath  at  this  unexpected  declara- 
tion ;  the  members  who  did  not  hunt  gave  way  to  bursts 
of  laughter  over  the  audacious  humor  of  Blake's  inter- 
vention in  the  debate,  as  he  had  intervened  in  the  hunt- 
ing-field purely  for  the  sake  of  defending  the  cause  of 
the  fox.  Some  members  in  the  House  quite  understood 
that  Blake  was  a  sincere  even  if  a  somewhat  eccentric 
representative  of  the  principle  which  protests  against 
civilized  and  responsible  human  beings  seeking  and 
finding  pastime  in  the  destruction  of  dumb  animals. 
This  was,  indeed,  a  part  of  Blake's  conscientious  convic- 
tions. He  had  many  ideas  which  divided  him  from  the 
ordinary  and  conventional  opinions  of  society  at  that 
time.  He  had  a  curious  combination  of  qualities — I 
had  almost  said  of  characters.  He  was,  politically,  a 
typical  Irish  member  of  the  old-fashioned  order,  which 
was  content  to  go  on  quietly  bringing  forward  a  motion 
every  session  demanding  national  government  for  Ire- 
land, and  another  motion  claiming  that  justice  should 
be  done  to  the  cause  of  the  Irish  tenants.  When  the 
debate  and  the  division  had  been  taken  on  these  mo- 
tions the  national  work  of  the  Irish  member  was  sup- 
posed to  be  done  for  the  session,  and  it  was  not  cus- 
tomary for  Ireland  to  show  any  interest  in  the  general 
business  of  the  House. 

John  Aloysius  Blake  was,  however,  a  thorough 
humorist  as  well  as  an  Irish  national  member,  and  he 
had  a  keen  perception  of  the  absurdity  of  the  whole 
situation  and  the  futility  of  endeavoring  to  arouse  the 
attention  of  the  British  public  to  a  national  cause  thus 
represented  twice  a  year  by  a  mere  ceremonial  perform- 
ance. He  made  many  good  jokes  in  private  conversa- 
tion about  the  tremendous  effect  which  the  quiet  speech 
of  some  colleague,  delivered  during  one  of  these  debates 
to  an  almost  empty  house,  was  sure  to  have  upon  the 

111 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

feelings  and  the  conscience  of  the  British  nation. 
Blake  was  in  a  certain  sense  what  might  be  called  a 
sentimentalist  as  well  as  a  humorist.  This  peculiarity 
has  been  already  illustrated  by  the  part  he  took  in  the 
debate  which  brought  up  the  fox-hunting  question. 
There  was  a  tenderness  of  feeling  in  him,  a  quality  of 
compassion  which  often  swayed  his  practical  judgment 
in  the  business  of  life.  I  have  heard  it  said  of  him 
that  while  acting  as  a  magistrate  in  his  native  county 
he  could  never  be  brought  to  pass  any  severe  sentence  on 
a  juvenile  delinquent  no  matter  what  the  juvenile  de- 
linquent's offences  might  have  been,  and  indeed  he  lived 
to  see  a  time  when  even  the  criminal  law  itself  consent- 
ed to  embody  some  of  those  sentiments  of  compassion  in 
the  treatment  of  the  young  which  were  always  cher- 
ished by  him. 

Blake  was  an  anti-vivisectionist  in  days  before  the 
question  of  vivisection  had  come  to  be  the  subject  of 
serious  public  agitation.  He  was  a  shrewd  observer  of 
life,  of  men,  and  of  manners,  and  one  who  had  only  met 
him  in  private  society  and  had  been  much  in  conversa- 
tion with  him  there,  might  well  have  wondered  how  a 
man  of  his  wide  travel,  his  varied  experiences,  and 
his  quick,  sharp  power  of  criticism  should  have  failed 
to  make  any  mark  in  parliamentary  debate.  But,  in 
truth,  Blake  had  no  ambition  for  success  as  a  speaker, 
and  with  his  clear,  good  sense  he  had  thoroughly  taken 
the  measure  of  his  own  capacity,  and  felt  quite  sure 
that  nature  had  not  created  him  to  be  a  power  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  was  well  known  and  very 
popular  in  the  House,  but  he  was  liked  only  for  his 
private  qualities,  and  was  never  taken  into  account 
when  people  talked  about  the  rising  debaters  of  the 
different  political  parties.  I  have  never  known  any 
one  who  illustrated  more  aptly  in  his  own  person  the 

112 


A   PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

saying  that  a  man  may  be  in  Parliament  but  not  of  it. 
He  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  most  genial  host,  and  I  have 
enjoyed  many  of  his  delightful  dinner-parties  at  Queen 
Anne's  Mansions,  at  the  Langham  Hotel,  and  at  the 
Star  and  Garter  in  Richmond.  I  have  met  many  con- 
spicuous members  of  Parliament  there  and  many  dis- 
tinguished foreigners,  for  Blake  had  the  amiable  weak- 
ness— if  it  be  a  weakness — of  loving  to  gather  around 
him  guests  who  had  made  a  reputation  or  who  had,  at  all 
events,  something  to  say  for  themselves  which  it  would 
interest  others  to  hear.  My  closer  acquaintance  with 
Blake  did  not  begin  until  after  the  early  sixties  had 
passed  away,  but  I  knew  him  even  in  the  early  sixties, 
and  he  remained  much  the  same  man  all  the  time.  He 
followed  the  guidance  of  his  own  tastes,  inclinations, 
principles,  and  sentiments,  and  he  must  have  led,  on  the 
whole,  a  happy,  and  for  him  a  satisfying,  life.  These 
pages  I  have  written  about  him  may,  I  hope,  bring  a 
kindly  memory  of  him  to  some  at  least  among  the  older 
living  members  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  portrait  of  Lord  Dunkellin  recalls  to  my  mind 
a  remarkable  parliamentary  episode.  That  episode,  in- 
deed, contains  the  only  associations  I  have  with  Lord 
Dunkellin's  parliamentary  career.  It  occurred  in  the 
new  Parliament  of  1866  when  Mr.  Gladstone  brought 
in  his  first  Reform  Bill.  That  was  the  measure  which 
led  to  the  famous  Adullamite  secession  led  by  Robert 
Lowe,  afterwards  Lord  Sherbrooke.  Never  perhaps 
was  there  heard  in  the  House  of  Commons  more  brill- 
iant debating  than  in  that  session  and  on  that  measure. 
Gladstone,  Bright,  and  Lowe  rose  to  the  very  height  of 
their  powers,  and  although  Lowe  was  not  an  orator  in 
the  higher  sense  of  the  word,  and  although  his  very 
articulation  was  against  him,  and  his  voice  had  no 
musical  thrill  in  it,  yet  it  must  be  owned  that  his  mas- 
s  113 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

tery  of  bitter  sarcasm  and  telling  illustration  enabled 
him  to  hold  his  own  fairly  against  the  two  great  mas- 
ters of  parliamentary  debate  with  whom  he  had  to  con- 
tend. The  Conservatives  and  the  Adullamites,  as  they 
were  called  from  a  happy  phrase  of  Bright's  —  the 
"  Cave  of  Adullam "  is  still  quoted  in  speeches  and 
leading  articles — were  united  in  opposition  to  the  re- 
form measure,  which  was,  after  all,  but  a  very  moderate 
scheme  of  suffrage  reform,  and  would  seem  rather  like 
old-fashioned  conservatism  to  politicians  of  our  day. 
The  bill  at  last  got  into  committee,  and  it  was  then 
that  Lord  Dunkellin  became  for  the  first  and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  for  the  last  time  a  personage  of  parlia- 
mentary importance. 

Lord  Dunkellin  brought  forward  a  motion  to  the 
effect  that  the  proposed  franchise  of  seven  pounds  in 
boroughs  be  a  qualification  founded  on  rating  and  not 
on  rental.  The  effect  of  this  amendment,  if  carried, 
would  have  been  to  raise  the  qualification  for  a  vote  a 
little  above  the  limit  which  the  liberal  government 
proposed  to  establish.  It  would  appear  that  houses  are 
usually  rated  at  a  lower  figure  than  the  actual  rent 
which  the  tenant  has  to  pay.  To  require,  therefore,  a 
rating  franchise  of  seven  pounds  a  year  would  have  the 
practical  effect  of  making  it  equal  to  a  rental  of  about 
eight  pounds  a  year.  It  seems  to  us  now  rather  hard 
to  understand  how  even  the  most  conservative  minds 
could  have  thought  that  a  difference  of  one  pound  a 
year  or  so  in  the  qualification  for  a  voter  could  have 
formed  anything  like  a  substantial  barrier  against  that 
invasion  of  democracy  which  the  Tories  and  the  Adul- 
lamites professed  to  regard  with  so  much  dread.  Lord 
Dunkellin's  amendment,  however,  was  taken  with  ab- 
solute seriousness  by  the  opponents  of  the  Reform  Bill, 
and  the  discussion  was  carried  on  with  as  much  fervor 

114 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

on  both  sides  of  the  House  as  if  it  were  the  last  stand 
made  by  the  devoted  defenders  of  order  against  the 
champions  of  anarchy,  the  apostles  of  red  ruin,  and  the 
breaking-up  of  laws. 

Lord  Dunkellin  was  successful  with  his  amendment, 
and  became  the  hero  of  the  hour  among  the  opponents 
of  reform.  He  carried  his  proposal  by  a  majority  of 
seven,  and  that  success  sealed  the  fate  of  the  reform 
measure.  Lord  Russell  and  Mr.  Gladstone  felt  that 
under  all  the  conditions  there  was  no  further  use  in 
their  trying  to  carry  the  measure.  The  secession  of  the 
Adullamites  had  clearly  made  the  success  of  the  bill 
impossible.  Russell  and  Gladstone  and  their  col- 
leagues tendered  their  resignations  to  the  sovereign, 
and  the  resignations  had  to  be  accepted.  That  was,  in 
effect,  the  close  of  Lord  Russell's  great  career.  The  Con- 
servatives came  into  office,  and  in  the  following  session 
introduced  to  the  House  of  Commons,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  Disraeli,  a  reform  bill  of  their  own,  which  they 
allowed  to  be  expanded  into  a  much  more  extensive 
improvement  of  the  parliamentary  suffrage  than  any- 
thing which  Lord  Russell  and  Gladstone  had  proposed. 
!NTot  often,  perhaps,  in  the  parliamentary  history  of 
England  has  so  trivial  an  amendment  on  one  of  the 
provisions  of  a  government  measure  brought  about  so 
sudden  and  so  momentous  a  parliamentary  event  as  that 
which  was  accomplished  by  Lord  Dunkellin's  proposal. 
ISTot  within  my  recollection,  certainly,  has  a  man  so 
suddenly  sprung  into  parliamentary  importance  as  Lord 
Dunkellin  did  in  that  session,  and  so  completely  faded 
away  from  political  notice  during  the  remainder  of  his 
public  career. 

Daniel  O'Connell,  M.P.,  is  the  name  belonging  to 
another  portrait  which  I  have  thought  it  well  to  include 
in  this  somewhat  peculiar  parliamentary  group.  A 

115 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

glance  at  the  portrait  will  possibly  for  a  moment  puzzle 
many  a  reader.  Daniel  O'Connell,  M.P. !  The  ordi- 
nary reader  knows,  perhaps,  of  only  one  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell, M.P.,  and  his  fame  hardly  belongs  to  the  early 
sixties.  Then  the  portrait  itself  would  not  recall  to 
mind  any  recollection  of  the  many  pictures,  statues, 
and  engravings  which  represent  the  great  Irish  tribune. 
There  is  a  portrait  of  Daniel  O'Connell,  for  instance, 
in  the  Reform  Club  which  many  of  my  readers  may 
have  seen,  and  it  does  not  seem  quite  like  the  face  of 
the  man  with  the  trim  mustache  who  is  pictured  in 
this  parliamentary  group.  But  the  momentary  puzzle 
will  soon  come  to  an  end.  Those  who  read  these  pages 
will  begin  to  remember  that  Daniel  O'Connell  had  a 
younger  son,  another  Daniel,  who  sat  in  the  House  of 
Commons  at  one  time.  I  have  but  faint  recollections 
of  the  great  orator  and  agitator,  the  Liberator,  as  he 
was  called  by  his  countrymen.  He  died  while  I  was 
only  in  my  seventeenth  year,  and  up  to  that  time  I  had 
never  seen  the  House  of  Commons.  I  saw  O'Connell 
but  once,  in  fact,  and  that  was  in  the  closing  days  of 
his  life.  He  attended  on  that  occasion  a  gathering 
held  at  one  of  the  schools  of  my  native  city  Cork,  and 
delivered  an  address.  He  was  seated  in  an  arm-chair, 
an  old,  outworn  man  whose  voice  was  hardly  heard 
through  the  greater  part  of  the  hall,  and  this  is  my 
only  personal  recollection  of  the  orator  and  national 
leader  whose  magnificent  voice  could  reach  with  thrill- 
ing effect  to  the  farthest  extremity  of  some  vast  open- 
air  meeting,  and  who  was  universally  regarded  as  one 
of  the  greatest  speakers  the  House  of  Commons  had 
listened  to  in  modern  times. 

But  Daniel  O'Connell  had  sons,  three  of  whom  had 
seats  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell whose  portrait  is  given  here  was  one  of  these.  I 

116 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

met  him  during  the  sixties,  and  in  later  years  I  was 
often  in  his  society,  and  was  counted,  I  hope,  among 
his  friends.  He  had  been  appointed  British  consul 
at  various  foreign  ports,  and  towards  the  close  of  his 
life  he  held  some  civic  appointment  under  the  govern- 
ment— I  think  as  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  Income 
Tax.  He  then  lived  in  London,  and  we  had  many  op- 
portunities for  meeting.  He  was  a  very  interesting  man 
to  talk  with,  because  he  had  had  a  large  and  varied 
experience  of  life  and  of  travel,  and  he  had  a  pretty  wit 
of  his  own.  But  he  had  none  of  his  father's  great  gifts, 
and  he  took  but  little  interest  in  political  affairs.  Of 
the  three  sons  who  sat  in  Parliament,  Maurice  was  the 
ablest ;  John  remained  in  Parliament  for  a  considerable 
time  but  without  making  any  decided  mark  there,  and 
will  probably  be  best  remembered  by  his  countrymen 
because  of  his  compilation  of  his  father's  speeches 
accompanied  by  a  well-arranged  memoir.  The  name  of 
the  younger  Daniel  has  almost  entirely  ceased  to  be 
even  a  memory  in  the  House  of  Commons.  I  have  in- 
cluded his  portrait  in  this  volume,  believing  it  may 
have  an  interest  for  many  of  my  readers,  if  only  as  a 
link  with  a  thrilling  past  and  as  the  shadow  of  a  great 
name. 

I  must  add  to  this  group  of  members  one  whose 
short  parliamentary  career  came  to  a  close  in  the  early 
sixties,  and  whose  death  followed  not  long  after.  This 
was  Thomas  Chandler  Haliburton,  a  Canadian  by  birth 
and  bringing  up,  who  had  been  called  to  the  Bar  in 
Canada,  made  a  successful  career  there,  became  a  judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  then  settled  in  England, 
where  he  died  and  was  buried.  I  am  inclined  to  be- 
lieve that  the  name  of  Thomas  Chandler  Haliburton 
will  not  at  once  bring  to  the  minds  of  all  my  readers 
any  clear  idea  as  to  the  personality  of  the  man  whose 

117 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

picture  I  now  bring  under  their  notice.  I  am  afraid 
that  even  when  I  describe  Haliburton  as  the  author  of 
Sam  Slick  some  at  least  of  my  readers  will  not  at  once 
remember  who  Sam  Slick  was.  Sam  Slick  was  sup- 
posed to  be  a  Yankee  clock-maker,  who,  after  various 
experiences  and  adventures  in  his  own  country,  ob- 
tained promotion  to  the  rank  of  an  attache  to  the 
United  States  minister  at  the  Court  of  St.  James's,  and 
who  gives  us  his  observations  upon  English  life  and  his 
experiences  of  English  society  in  the  same  style  as  that 
which  had  pictured  life  in  his  own  land.  Sam  Slick 
has  been  described  as  a  sort  of  American  Sam  Weller, 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Haliburton's  Sam 
might  fairly  rank  for  drollery,  for  keen  observation,  and 
for  genuine  humor  with  the  Sam  who  was  the  creation 
of  Charles  Dickens.  Sam  Slick-  was  at  one  time,  and 
for  a  long  time,  a  book  of  immense  popularity  among 
English  as  well  as  among  American  readers.  I  greatly 
fear  that  it  has  now  passed  out  of  the  memory  of  most 
readers  in  this  country,  and  that  to  declare  one's  self  an 
admirer  of  the  work  and  of  its  hero  is  an  admission  that 
one  has  left  one's  youth  a  long  way  behind. 

I  can  remember  the  days  when  Sam  Slick  was  as 
well  known  in  England  as  Sam  Weller,  and  when  his 
sayings  and  doings,  his  odd,  original  humors,  and  his 
vivid  pictures  of  eccentric  figures  were  the  subject  of 
frequent  allusions  and  quotations  in  English  books  and 
newspapers,  and  in  the  conversation  of  all  who  had  a 
genuine  relish  for  fiction  of  the  comic  order.  There 
was  much  in  Sam  Slick  not  merely  comic ;  he  had  many 
touches  of  deep  feeling  and  of  keen  pathos  which  we 
do  not  associate  with  the  peculiarities  of  Sam  Weller. 
Indeed,  one  of  the  defects  of  Sam  Slick  was  that  he 
too  often  indulged  in  serious  meditations  on  the  graver 
side  of  life,  and  even  preached  us  occasional  sermons 

118 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

when  we  should  all  have  preferred  his  more  habitual 
rattle  of  jokes  and  quaintly  satirical  sayings.  Most  of 
the  readers,  even  among  those  who  felt  a  warm  admira- 
tion for  the  Yankee  clock-maker,  were  apt  to  skip  the 
sermons  and  to  give  their  whole  attention  to  the  com- 
icalities. It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  book  was  a 
great  success  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  as  well  as  on 
the  other,  and  that  for  a  long  time  it  continued  to  have 
its  numberless  admirers.  Haliburton,  although  he  won 
his  fame  as  the  creator  of  an  American  character,  was 
at  heart  a  very  devoted  subject  of  the  British  crown, 
and  was  delighted  when  the  opportunity  came  which 
allowed  him  to  settle  in  England  and  become  absorbed 
in  English  life.  When  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  seat 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  British  public  regarded 
his  appearance  in  that  assembly  with  the  keenest  in- 
terest and  expectation.  Everybody  was  eager  to  know 
how  the  author  of  Sam  Slick  would  comport  himself, 
and  whether  he  was  likely  to  enliven  the  House  by  the 
humors  and  drolleries  which  had  made  him  such  a 
favorite  in  fiction.  I  am  afraid  there  was  a  certain  dis- 
appointment experienced  by  the  public  in  general  when 
Haliburton  turned  out  to  be  very  much  like  an  ordinary 
member  of  Parliament  belonging  to  the  somewhat  old- 
fashioned  school.  When  he  did  speak  in  a  debate  he 
addressed  himself  with  unmitigated  gravity  to  an  argu- 
ment on  the  subject  under  discussion.  He  spoke  but 
seldom,  and  he  might  but  for  his  accent  have  been  an 
ordinary  British  representative  from  one  of  the  con- 
servative counties,  and  might  never  have  had  anything 
to  do  with  the  Yankee  clock-making  trade. 

My  first  opportunity  of  hearing  Haliburton  was  not 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  but  at  a  dinner  given  on  the 
occasion  of  some  great  agricultural  celebration  in  Kil- 
larney,  within  sight  of  those  lakes  which  can  challenge 

119 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

comparison  with  Windermere  and  Grasmere,  with 
Geneva  and  Lucerne,  with  Como  and  Maggiore, 
with  Lake  George  and  Lake  Champlain.  In  the 
speech  he  delivered  on  that  occasion  Haliburton  in- 
dulged in  his  humorous  style,  and  described  himself 
as  coming  from  Pumpkinton  county,  Ohio,  a  place 
famed  for  its  "  gals,  geese,  and  onions.'*  I  heard  him 
afterwards  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  my  memory 
especially  goes  back  to  a  debate  he  took  part  in,  and  in 
which  he  was  made  the  victim  of  a  rather  happy  stroke 
of  satire  by  no  less  a  person  than  William  Ewart  Glad- 
stone. Haliburton  had  been  expressing  his  views  on 
some  subject  then  before  the  House — the  subject,  I 
must  admit,  has  wholly  passed  out  of  my  memory — and 
he  was  severely  condemning  in  solemn  and  almost 
funereal  tone  the  manner  in  which  the  members  of  the 
liberal  government  had  endeavored  to  throw  ridicule 
on  their  opponents.  Gladstone  was  a  leading  member 
of  the  administration,  and  it  became  part  of  his  duty 
to  sum  up  the  case  on  behalf  of  the  ministry.  In  the 
course  of  his  remarks  he  made  allusion  to  Haliburton's 
speech,  and  declared  that  nothing  in  all  his  parlia- 
mentary experience  had  given  him  greater  surprise  than 
to  hear  the  author  of  8am  Slick  object  to  the  use  of 
ridicule.  The  retort  was  fairly  invited  and  was  very 
happy.  Even  Haliburton's  political  associates  were 
rather  pleased  with  it,  because  they,  too,  could  not  help 
feeling  a  certain  sense  of  disappointment  when  the 
author  of  Sam  Slick  refused  to  give  the  House  some 
taste  of  his  genuine  quality. 

I  do  not  now  remember  whether  Haliburton  ever  made 
a  really  humorous  speech  in  the  House,  but  I  am  quite 
sure  that  if  he  did  I  had  not  the  good  fortune  to  hear 
it.  After  the  first  sensation  of  interest  and  curiosity 
caused  by  his  introduction  to  the  House  had  passed 

120 


A    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

away,  the  parliamentary  career  of  Haliburton  remained 
entirely  undistinguished.  His  career  could  hardly  be 
called  a  failure,  because  he  made  no  effort  at  success; 
but  I  always  thought  that  there  must  have  been  some 
lack  of  nervous  energy,  some  curious,  morbid  shyness  in 
Haliburton's  temperament,  which  kept  him  from  trying 
to  find  any  field  in  parliamentary  debate  for  the  wonder- 
ful qualities  of  shrewdness,  keen  observation,  original 
humor,  and  high  moral  purpose  which  characterized 
all  his  best  writings.  Haliburton's  figure  is  not  the 
least  remarkable  in  that  parliamentary  group  whose 
pictures  belong  to  this  chapter. 


CHAPTER  X 

ANOTHER  PARLIAMENTARY  GROUP 

MANY  of  the  portraits  around  which,  if  I  may  so  ex- 
press myself,  this  volume  is  constructed  bring  back  to 
my  mind  figures  which,  although  not  coming  under 
even  the  shadow  of  a  great  name,  may  recall  distinct 
and  interesting  memories  to  readers  of  the  present 
generation.  The  men  with  whom  I  dealt  in  the  last 
chapter  had  each  of  them  a  distinct  career  or  purpose 
of  his  own,  and  they  may  be  regarded  as  in  a  certain 
sense  historical  personages.  But  there  were  others  asso- 
ciated with  the  Parliament,  and  especially  with  the 
House  of  Commons,  of  those  far-off  times  who  made  a 
distinct  impression  on  the  attention  of  every  one  fa- 
miliar with  that  House,  although  none  of  those  I  am 
about  to  mention  in  this  chapter  had  made  any  mark 
upon  public  life  by  his  eloquence,  by  his  political  influ- 
ence, or  even  by  his  fanaticism  or  eccentricity.  One 
man,  indeed,  with  whose  portrait  this  chapter  is  illus- 
trated, was  not  even  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  never,  so  far  as  I  have  heard,  showed  or  felt 
the  slightest  desire  to  become  the  representative  of  any 
constituency.  Yet  this  man  had  a  seat  in  the  House 
of  Commons  for  many  years — a  seat  from  which  he 
could  riot  have  been  ejected  by  the  vote  of  any  political 
majority.  Even  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons 
has  to  be  elected  to  a  place  in  that  House  by  the  vote 
of  a  majority  of  his  constituents,  and  if  at  any  general 

122 


ANOTHER  PARLIAMENTARY  GROUP 

election  he  should  fail  to  obtain  that  majority  or  a 
majority  in  another  constituency,  his  place  in  the 
Speaker's  chair  is  vacant,  and  some  duly  elected  mem- 
ber of  the  House  must  be  chosen  to  fill  it.  But  the  man 
about  whom  I  am  going  to  speak  did  not  owe  his  seat 
in  the  House  to  the  favor  of  any  constituency,  and 
could  not  have  been  displaced  from  it  by  the  verdict 
of  any  number  of  successive  general  elections.  For 
this  fortunate  man  was  the  Sergeant-at-Arms. 

The  portrait  of  Captain  Gosset  will  bring  back  many 
pleasant  and  kindly  memories  to  those  whose  recollec- 
tions extend,  as  mine  do,  back  to  the  parliamentary  life 
of  a  past  generation.  Captain  Ralph  A.  Gosset  held 
for  many  years  the  office  of  Sergeant-at-Arms  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Now,  as  most  of  my  readers  know, 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms  is  a  very  important  functionary. 
He  wears  a  court  suit,  is  girt  with  a  sword,  and  his  duty 
is  to  carry  out,  and,  if  necessary,  to  enforce  all  the 
directions  of  the  Speaker  for  the  maintenance  of  order 
in  the  House.  He  sits  in  a  little  chair,  or  box,  or  throne 
of  his  own,  near  the  entrance  to  the  House  from  the 
members'  lobby,  at  the  right  side  of  the  Chamber  as 
you  advance  towards  the  Speaker's  chair.  He  sits  quite 
close  to  the  benches  of  the  members  on  that  side  of  the 
House,  and  he  faces  Mr.  Speaker.  He  has  a  Deputy 
Sergeant-at-Arms  and  an  Assistant  Sergeant-at-Arms, 
who  relieve  him  of  his  duties  during  a  great  part  of 
each  sitting,  and,  indeed,  if  he  had  not  such  relief  his  life 
would  be  sadly  monotonous  during  his  hours  of  official 
attendance.  The  Sergeant-at-Arms  is  not  allowed  to  be- 
guile the  time  by  reading  a  book  or  a  newspaper.  No 
man  may  read  a  newspaper  within  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. I  remember  that  in  one  of  Thackeray's  novels 
the  great  author  makes  some  passing  reference  to  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  and  describes  the  statesman  as  rising  from 

123 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

his  place  on  the  treasury  bench,  and  proceeding  to 
read  certain  passages  from  a  copy  of  the  Times  which 
he  holds  in  his  hands  and  concerning  which  he  pro- 
poses to  offer  some  observations.  It  is  strange  that  so 
observant  a  man  as  Thackeray,  who  might  have  been 
expected  to  know  all  about  the  ways  of  that  House  in 
which  at  one  time  he  strove  to  obtain  a  seat,  should  have 
made  such  a  mistake.  No  member  can  rise  in  the 
House  and  read  extracts  from  a  newspaper.  If  there 
are  any  passages  in  a  journal  on  which  he  desires  to 
comment  he  must  have  them  copied  out  from  the  news- 
paper, and  he  will  then  be  in  order  if  he  reads  from 
the  copy,  but  he  must  on  no  account  presume  to  take  the 
newspaper  itself  in  his  hand  and  read  from  its  columns. 
Such  at  least  were  the  strict  rules  of  order  up  till  the 
time  when  I  resigned  my  seat  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  as  that  was  only  at  the  last  general  elec- 
tion I  do  not  suppose  any  change  in  this  old-time  rule 
has  since  been  made. 

All  this,  however,  is  merely  a  digression  into  which 
I  was  led  in  explaining  the  fact  that  the  Sergeant-at- 
Arms  is  not  allowed  to  amuse  himself  by  reading  a  news- 
paper while  he  occupies  his  official  seat.  The  Speaker 
himself  is  restricted  in  a  like  way,  and  he,  too,  is  not 
permitted  to  while  away  a  dull  hour  by  reading  from  a 
book  or  a  newspaper  while  he  occupies  his  throne  of 
office.  But  then  there  is  a  difference.  The  Speaker 
is  the  guardian  of  order  in  the  House.  No  mat- 
ter how  dull,  tame,  and  prosy  a  debate  may  be,  the 
Speaker  can  never  feel  certain  that  at  any  moment 
something  may  not  be  said  or  done  which  would  con- 
stitute a  breach  of  order  and  call  for  his  prompt  and 
peremptory  interference.  Therefore  he  has  to  keep 
his  attention  as  closely  fixed  as  he  can  upon  the  speeches 
of  right  honorable  and  honorable  members,  and  he 

124 


ANOTHER   PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

probably  has  the  well-founded  conviction  that  the  mo- 
ment he  allowed  his  attention  to  wander  some  encroach- 
ment on  the  rules  of  order  would  be  certain  to  occur. 

But  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  has  no  such  strain  imposed 
on  his  intellectual  faculties.  His  duty  is  merely  to  see 
that  the  commands  of  the  Speaker  are  promptly  and 
effectively  carried  out,  and  that  the  well-known  and 
long-established  regulations  of  the  House  are  not  in- 
fringed upon  by  careless  members  or  ignorant  or  ob- 
trusive strangers.  If,  for  instance,  a  member  were  to 
begin  reading  a  newspaper  or  writing  a  letter  while 
occupying  his  seat  in  the  House,  the  Sergeant-at-Arms 
would  promptly  and  of  his  own  motion  inform  the 
erring  member  that  he  was  committing  a  breach  of 
order.  If  a  stranger  were  to  walk  in  from  the  lobby 
and  attempt  to  take  a  seat  on  one  of  the  benches  of  the 
debating  chamber  where  only  members  sit,  the  Sergeant- 
at-Arms  would  not  have  to  wait  for  any  direction  from 
the  Speaker,  but  would  at  once  conduct  the  intruding 
personage  back  to  the  lobby  again.  But  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  things  while  a  debate  is  going  on  the  Sergeant- 
at-Arms  has  no  particular  motive  for  fastening  his  at- 
tention on  the  speeches  which  are  delivered.  That  is 
the  business  of  the  Speaker,  and  the  thoughts  of  the 
Sergeant-at-Arms  are  free  to  wander  whither  they  will. 
I  remember  being  greatly  amused  once  while  Captain 
Gosset  himself  was  endeavoring  to  impress  on  some  of 
us  in  a  private  conversation  that  the  lot  of  the  Sergeant- 
at-Arms  was  even  harder  during  a  long  and  dull  de- 
bate than  that  which  official  duties  imposed  on  Mr. 
Speaker.  Captain  Gosset  contended  that  if  you  have  to 
keep  your  attention  fixed  on  what  is  said  during  even 
the  dullest  debate  you  must  be  inspired  with  a  certain 
kind  of  interest  in  what  is  said,  and  that  this  in  itself 
helps  to  make  the  time  pass  more  quickly  than  if  you 

125 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

have  to  sit  out  the  whole  performance  but  are  not  com- 
pelled to  listen.  I  commend  the  question  as  one  well 
worthy  the  attention  of  those  who  make  the  operations 
of  the  human  mind  a  subject  of  habitual  study. 

I  must  now  return  to  my  portrait  and  its  subject. 
Captain  Gosset  was  one  of  the  most  good-humored  and 
genial  of  men.  He  was  on  the  most  friendly  terms 
with  every  member  of  the  House.  But  no  doubt  he 
had  his  preferences  and  his  feelings  of  companionship 
like  most  other  mortals,  and  these  he  was  enabled  to 
manifest  in  a  very  satisfactory  way  without  the  slight- 
est sacrifice  of  that  official  impartiality  which  was  one 
of  the  duties  of  his  position.  He  had  private  rooms 
within  the  precincts  of  the  House,  and  one  of  these 
rooms  he  used  as  a  place  of  social  reception  for  mem- 
bers whose  company  he  found  congenial.  There,  while 
he  was  off  duty,  he  used  to  have  pleasant  gatherings 
of  his  friends  during  the  evening  hours,  and  much  de- 
lightful talk  and  gossip  and  cheery  criticism  used  to  go 
on.  It  was  a  privilege  and  a  pleasure  to  be  invited  to 
join  in  some  of  these  friendly  gatherings  in  the  ser- 
geant's room.  Men  of  all  political  parties  met  and 
talked  there  in  the  friendliest  fashion,  and  it  often 
happened  that  two  members  who  had  been  denouncing 
each  other  and  each  other's  party  and  each  other's 
politics  an  hour  or  two  before  during  a  debate  in  the 
House  met  in  the  most  companionable  terms  in  the 
sergeant's  room,  smoked  their  cigars,  refreshed  them- 
selves with  his  liquids,  and  chaffed  each  other  about 
their  recent  performances  on  the  parliamentary  field. 

One  of  the  portraits  in  this  chapter  is  that  of  Sir 
Patrick  O'Brien,  an  Irish  member  who  was  often  to  be 
met  with  in  Gosset's  social  gatherings.  The  present 
generation,  I  am  afraid,  has  forgotten  all  about  Sir 
Patrick  O'Brien,  but  he  was  a  man  of  note  in  his  day 

126 


ANOTHER    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

among  all  who  took  any  interest  in  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  the  House  of  Commons.  I  have  seldom  met 
a  man  who  had  in  him  a  better  capacity  for  success  in 
political  life,  and  who  turned  his  abilities  and  his  op- 
portunities to  less  permanent  account.  He  was  a  man 
of  humor  and  of  wit,  had  an  original  way  of  looking  at 
things,  could  make  a  rattling  speech  in  debate,  and 
could  say  something  fresh  and  telling  even  on  the  most 
outworn  subject.  The  House  has  always  some  one  or 
two  odd  humorists  at  least  who  can  put  life  into  the 
dullest  debate,  and  whose  rising  commands  immediate 
attention  because  every  one  knows  that  something  is 
about  to  be  said  which  will  be  original  in  its  way  and 
is  sure  to  amuse  the  listeners.  Such  a  man,  for  in- 
stance, was  Bernal  Osborne ;  such  a  man,  although  per- 
haps not  quite  with  equal  gifts,  was  Patrick  O'Brien; 
and  I  could  mention  one  or  two  men  of  the  same  order 
in  the  present  House  of  Commons,  but  that  these  latest 
specimens  would  hardly  have  an  appropriate  place  in 
my  collection  of  portraitures  from  the  past.  Every- 
body liked  to  meet  Sir  Patrick  O'Brien  because  he  was 
sure  to  say  something  peculiar  and  amusing,  and  when 
there  was  no  question  of  an  interchange  of  mere  droll- 
eries he  could  make  himself  interesting  in  any  conver- 
sation about  politics  or  literature  or  conspicuous  figures 
in  the  living  world.  Such  a  man  was  sure  to  be  wel- 
comed among  those  who  frequented  Captain  Gosset's 
room,  where  political  opinions  counted  for  nothing, 
and,  indeed,  Sir  Patrick  O'Brien's  political  opinions 
were  not  of  a  sharply  defined  order.  Sir  Patrick  was 
understood  to  accept  in  general  the  political  creed  of 
the  majority  of  his  countrymen.  But  it  was  not  quite 
easy  to  know  where  to  have  him  even  on  Irish  questions, 
and  he  certainly  would  not  have  been  regarded  as  an 
advanced  Irish  Nationalist  of  that  order  which  was 

127 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

called  into  existence  by  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  I 
have  many  pleasant  memories  of  him,  but  I  am  not 
concerned  with  any  criticism  here  of  his  political 
career. 

I  remember  a  story  which  Captain  Gosset  once  told 
about  another  Irish  member  belonging  to  the  past, 
whose  name  it  is  not  necessary  to  set  down.  This  un- 
named Irish  member  was  often  in  Gosset's  room  and 
spent  as  much  time  there  as  he  could.  His  convivial 
habits  belonged  to  a  still  earlier  time,  and  his  friends 
regretted  the  fact  all  the  more  because  he  was  known 
to  have  a  loving  and  devoted  wife,  admired  by  every 
one  who  knew  her.  Captain  Gosset  was  once  giving 
some  kindly  advice  to  this  member,  and  was  urging 
him  to  keep  earlier  hours  and  not  to  sit  in  the  smoking- 
room  of  the  House,  as  might  have  been  done  in  those 
days  for  an  indefinite  time  after  the  Speaker  had  an- 
nounced the  close  of  the  sitting.  My  countryman  lis- 
tened to  the  advice  with  perfect  patience  and  then  said, 
"  Look  here,  Gosset,  I  tell  you  that  if  you  had  a  wife 
who  always  sat  up  for  you  to  give  you  a  dismal  lecture, 
you  wouldn't  be  in  quite  such  a  confounded  hurry  to 
get  home." 

Another  of  Captain  Gosset's  stories  concerned  an 
English  member  whose  name  I  also  omit  to  record. 
An  all-night  sitting  was  expected — this  was  in  the 
earliest  times  of  the  all-night  sittings — and  as  it  was  al- 
ready very  late  the  honorable  member  had,  contrary 
to  the  regulations  of  the  House,  found  a  comfortable 
arm-chair  in  the  library  for  the  reception  of  his  wife, 
who  had  been  sitting  in  the  ladies'  gallery  until  all  the 
other  ladies  had  left  the  gallery  and  gone  to  their 
homes.  The  debate,  however,  broke  down  for  some 
reason  OP  other,  and  the  Speaker  proclaimed  the  ad- 
journment of  the  House.  In  the  excitement  caused  by 

128 


ANOTHER    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

the  sudden  close  of  the  debate  the  English  member  for- 
got all  about  his  wife,  and  straightway  drove  home.  He 
let  himself  in  with  his  latch-key,  and  he  always  had  a 
bedroom  arranged  for  himself  on  the  ground  floor  in 
order  that  after  a  late  sitting  of  the  House  he  might 
avoid  disturbing  his  wife  and  his  family  by  his  return 
to  his  home  at  break  of  day.  This  considerate  arrange- 
ment proved  unsatisfactory  on  the  occasion  I  am  de- 
scribing. The  honorable  member  went  to  bed  and  fell 
fast  asleep.  A  little  later  some  of  the  attendants  in  the 
House  of  Commons  found  the  p«or  lady  seated  in  her 
arm-chair  in  the  library  and  fast  asleep  also.  I  do  not 
care  to  speculate  as  to  the  scene  which  may  have  taken 
place  when  the  lady  and  her  husband  met  for  the  first 
time  in  their  home  on  that  memorable  morning. 

I  pass  from  these  memories  pleasant  and  yet  melan- 
choly of  Captain  Gosset  and  his  semi-official  gatherings 
to  say  a  few  words  about  my  old  friend  Thomas  Bayley 
Potter,  who  was  in  his  time  one  of  the  best-known  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons.  Thomas  Bayley  Pot- 
ter was  a  man  of  influence  in  his  way  and  was  abso- 
lutely devoted  to  the  cause  of  advanced  liberalism  rep- 
resented by  Bright  and  Cobden.  He  was  also  a  man  of 
means,  and  he  lent  effective  help  to  the  maintenance 
of  liberal  organizations  and  liberal  movements  in  his 
part  of  the  country,  Lancashire,  and  indeed  wherever 
his  help  was  needed  and  could  fairly  be  claimed.  He 
was  absolutely  one  of  the  most  unselfish  men  I  ever 
knew.  He  was  rigidly  attentive  to  his  duties  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  the  whips  of  the  liberal 
party  could  always  count  on  his  presence  at  any  divi- 
sion, no  matter  how  other  men  might  feel  self-excused 
for  their  occasional  absence.  He  was  not  a  devoted 
ministerialist  when  the  Liberals  were  in  power,  and 
would  oppose  a  measure  introduced  by  a  liberal  gov- 
»  129 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

eminent  if  it  seemed  to  him  to  run  counter  in  any,  even 
of  its  minor  provisions,  to  the  true  principles  of  the 
liberal  cause.  He  had  absolutely  nothing  to  get  so  far 
as  I  can  see  by  his  steadfast  attention  to  his  parliamen- 
tary duties.  He  was  not  an  effective  speaker,  and  he 
was  quite  aware  of  his  want  of  eloquence  and  hardly 
ever  obtruded  himself  on  the  attention  of  the  House. 
He  had  absolutely  no  ambition.  He  had  not  the  slight- 
est desire  or  inclination  to  obtain  a  place  in  any  admin- 
istration, and  was  never  inspired  by  the  faintest  wish 
to  make  his  way  in  what  is  called  society.  Cobden  and 
Bright  were  his  life's  leaders,  and  so  long  as  he  could 
help  to  forward  the  principles  which  they  represented 
he  had  no  further  ambition  to  gratify  in  parliamentary 
and  public  life. 

During  many  periods  when  the  liberal  party  was 
occupying  the  benches  of  opposition  I  used  to  sit  near 
to  Potter — "  Tom  Potter,"  as  he  was  commonly  called 
— and  had  many  long  talks  with  him.  I  used  to  meet 
him  at  public  gatherings  and  at  the  dinners  of  the 
Cobden  Club,  which  he  had  helped  to  found.  His 
nature  was  curiously  blended  of  plain  common-sense 
and  an  almost  romantic  enthusiasm.  Now,  it  must  be 
allowed  that  we  do  not  often  meet  with  such  an  admixt- 
ure in  one  man,  for  your  enthusiast  is  seldom  found 
to  have  in  his  temperament  a  basis  of  what  is  called 
common-sense,  and  your  man  of  practical  common-sense 
is  rarely  touched  with  the  divine  fire  of  enthusiasm. 
But  in  Tom  Potter's  case  I  could  never  quite  decide  for 
myself  which  quality  held  the  more  controlling  place. 
One  might  talk  to  Potter  again  and  again  on  the  ordi- 
nary topics  of  the  day,  and  never  draw  from  him  a 
sentence  which  spoke  the  possession  of  anything  be- 
yond the  most  practical  and  prosaic  common-sense.  But 
when  you  came  to  converse  with  him  on  some  of  the 

130 


ANOTHER   PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

great  public  questions  which  occupied  so  much  of  his 
life,  you  could  not  help  seeing  that  he  was  inspired 
by  an  almost  uncalculating  enthusiasm  for  the  cause 
he  believed  to  be  right.  His  physical  conformation, 
solid,  broad,  and  square-built,  seemed  the  very  imper- 
sonation of  prose,  and  I  do  not  know  whether  he  ever 
read  a  poem  or  a  romance  in  his  life,  and  yet  his  abso- 
lutely unselfish  devotion  to  his  leaders  and  their  cause 
had  in  it  something  that  was  essentially  poetic. 

It  could  hardly  be  said  that  Tom  Potter  was  very 
popular  in  the  House  of  Commons,  for  he  had  not  the 
attractions  of  manner,  of  talk,  or  of  mind  which  win 
popularity  in  such  an  assembly.  But  the  House  in 
general  liked  him,  and  while  some  of  his  own  party 
seldom  spoke  of  him  without  a  half-amused,  half- 
compassionate  smile,  yet  all  who  knew  him  well,  no 
matter  what  their  political  opinions  might  be,  gave  him 
full  credit  for  his  steadfast  and  disinterested  course  of 
life.  Potter  was  endowed  with  a  genuine  gift  of  ad- 
miration, and  although  he  could  not  well  be  described 
as  a  man  of  intellect,  he  had  a  singular  faculty  for  the 
discernment  of  noble  qualities  in  others  wherever  these 
existed.  Strong,  definite,  and  unalterable  as  were  his 
political  opinions,  he  had  an  instinct  for  recognizing 
the  higher  qualities  even  of  those  whose  political  views 
were  most  odious  to  him,  and  the  worst  fault  a  man 
could  have  in  his  eyes  was  a  lack  of  sincere  attachment 
to  the  principles  he  professed  and  proclaimed.  Insin- 
cerity and  self-seeking  were  the  defects  Tom  Potter 
could  not  tolerate,  and  where  he  believed  these  to  exist 
no  gifts  of  eloquence,  no  success  in  statesmanship,  could 
extort  any  praise  from  him.  There  was  much  of  the 
heroic  in  the  spirit  which  animated  that  most  unwieldy 
figure. 

James  White  was  a  sturdy  Radical  —  one  of  the 
131 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

sturdiest  Radicals  in  those  days  when  radicalism  had 
more  to  do  with  the  unmaking  than  with  the  making 
of  administrations.  He  was  not  by  any  means  so  com- 
pletely devoid  of  personal  ambition  as  Thomas  Potter, 
and  he  had  to  all  appearance  a  fair  estimate  of  his  own 
capacity  for  debate.  He  spoke  often,  and  he  sometimes 
spoke  well — just  well  enough  to  provoke  criticism,  but 
not  nearly  well  enough  to  disarm  it.  He  was  a  very 
tall  man,  with  rather  an  imposing  presence  and  some- 
thing self-asserting  in  his  demeanor,  which  made  some 
of  his  political  opponents  anxious  to  depreciate  his  ef- 
forts at  success  in  debate.  He  had  a  way  of  sitting  on 
one  of  the  front  benches  below  the  gangway  with  his 
head  resting  on  the  back  of  the  bench  and  his  long  legs 
stretched  out  to  their  full  extent  in  front  of  him  and 
half  across  the  floor  of  the  House.  Some  reckless  polit- 
ical enemy  it  must  have  been  no  doubt  who,  writing  in 
a  newspaper,  once  described  his  habitual  attitude  by 
quoting  certain  words  from  Milton,  telling  how 
"  stretched  out  huge  in  length  "  a  certain  very  objec- 
tionable being  lay.  Disraeli  once  got  off  a  joke  against 
Mr.  White  which  stuck  to  his  victim  for  a  long  time. 
White  had  been  making  a  speech  into  which  he  intro- 
duced several  allusions  to  the  late  Mr.  Sheridan.  The 
speech  was  somewhat  ponderous  and  uninteresting,  and 
perhaps  Disraeli's  sense  of  the  ridiculous  was  aroused 
by  the  formal  manner  in  which  the  great  orator  and  wit 
of  an  earlier  day  was  always  described  as  "  the  late 
Mr.  Sheridan."  Disraeli  had  to  make  a  speech  during 
the  course  of  the  debate,  and  he  found  occasion  to  refer 
to  the  speech  of  James  White,  whom  he  described  as 
"  the  successor  to  the  late  Mr.  Sheridan  in  this  House." 
This  was  not  perhaps  a  great  stroke  of  wit  in  itself, 
but  it  told  immensely  on  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
contrast  presented  to  every  mind  between  the  late  Mr. 

132 


ANOTHER  PARLIAMENTARY  GROUP 

Sheridan  and  his  newly  created  successor  brought  out 
Homeric  laughter  from  all  parts  of  the  House,  and 
for  some  time  after  James  White  was  constantly  re- 
ferred to  inside  and  outside  Westminster  Palace  as 
the  successor  to  the  late  Mr.  Sheridan. 

The  portrait  of  Edward  Knatchbull-Hugessen  brings 
to  ray  mind  many  recollections,  and  suggests  what 
might  seem  to  be  a  paradoxical  reflection.  Knatchbull- 
Hugessen  the  politician  is,  I  fear,  all  but  forgotten 
by  the  younger  generation,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
Knatchbull-Hugessen  the  literary  man  has  passed  from 
the  memory  of  the  elders  in  general,  and  is  only  known 
to  their  children  or  grandchildren.  For  Knatchbull- 
Hugessen  was  a  writer  of  stories  for  the  young,  and 
wrote,  indeed,  some  of  the  most  delightful  tales  for 
children  published  in  the  England  of  Queen  Victoria's 
reign.  He  wrote  Stories  for  My  Children,  Crackers  for 
Christmas,  Moonshine  Tales,  Whispers  from  Fairy- 
land, Puss-Cat-Mew,  and  numbers  of  other  stories  and 
sketches  which  were  the  delight  of  young  people  who  had 
long  emerged  from  the  nursery.  I  remember  Knatch- 
bull-Hugessen very  well  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
where  he  became  Tinder-Secretary  for  the  Home  Depart- 
ment and  afterwards  Under-Secretary  for  the  Colonies 
in  a  liberal  administration.  He  was  not,  however,  what 
would  at  any  time  have  been  called  a  very  robust  Liberal, 
and  I  believe  that  after  he  had  been  raised  to  the  peer- 
age as  Lord  Braybourne  he  settled  down  into  quiet  con- 
servatism. He  never  made  any  impression  on  the 
House  of  Commons,  although  when  he  had  occasion  to 
speak  he  always  spoke  clearly  and  to  the  purpose.  To 
look  at  him  there  he  seemed  about  the  least  likely  man 
in  the  world  to  be  capable  of  writing  stories  which  could 
amuse  the  young  folks,  for  he  always  wore  an  aspect 
of  intense  and  even  dismal  gravity,  and  gave  the  idea 

133 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

of  one  who  had  been  sentenced  to  imprisonment  in  the 
House  for  some  offence  of  which  he  was  not  guilty. 
On  the  other  hand,  one  who  read  his  stories  for  children, 
and  knew  nothing  of  the  author's  personal  career,  would 
never  have  dreamed  of  associating  such  bright  and 
lively  writing  with  the  grim-looking  personage  who 
seemed  to  put  in  an  unwilling  appearance  in  the  House 
of  Commons. 

We  have  grown  of  late  somewhat  accustomed,  at  least 
in  literature,  to  these  living  contrasts  in  one  frame. 
We  have,  indeed,  come  to  assume  almost  as  a  matter 
of  course  that  the  maker  of  perpetual  jokes  is  a  gloomy 
pessimist  at  heart,  that  the  professional  mute  at  the 
funeral  is  the  merriest  of  creatures  when  he  is  out  of 
business  hours,  and  so  forth.  I  remember  once  hearing 
two  young  men  discussing  some  great  question  of  world 
philosophy  after  a  pleasant  dinner-party.  One  was  dark- 
haired,  with  sallow  complexion  and  an  aspect  of  in- 
tense melancholy.  The  other  was  fair-haired,  with  fair 
skin,  bright  eyes,  and  a  smiling  countenance.  The  com- 
pany was  much  taken  by  two  sentences  which  came  from 
the  lips  of  the  disputants.  "  You  see,"  the  fair-head- 
ed, beaming  youth  observed,  "  I  am  a  thorough  pessi- 
mist." "  And  I,"  his  gloomy  comrade  replied,  with 
brows  growing  darker  than  ever,  "  am  in  all  things  a 
thorough  optimist."  The  humorous  incongruity  brought 
sudden  laughter  from  all  the  listeners,  and  the  dispute 
came  to  an  end.  I  have  always  thought  that  Knatch- 
bull-Hugessen  the  parliamentary  politician  and  Knatch- 
bull-Hugessen  the  writer  of  stories  for  the  young  formed 
as  effective  an  illustration  of  this  living  paradox  as  ever 
came  within  the  range  of  my  observation. 

There  seems  something  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the 
time  when  my  present  chapter  comes  to  be  written  in 
the  portrait  of  the  Right  Honorable  William  Francis 

134 


ANOTHER    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

Cowper.  Mr.  Cowper  was  better  known  to  later  years 
as  Mr.  Cowper-Temple,  having  been  allowed  to  assume 
the  family  name  of  Lord  Palmerston  after  the  death 
of  that  statesman,  who  had  become  the  second  husband 
of  Mr.  Cowper's  widowed  mother.  The  appropriate- 
ness of  which  I  have  just  spoken  would  require  some 
words  of  explanation  for  the  ordinary  reader  of  the 
present  day.  During  the  winter  in  which  I  have  got 
thus  far  with  my  volume  the  whole  time,  or  very  nearly 
the  whole  time,  of  the  parliamentary  session  is  occupied 
in  debates  on  the  education  bill.  Every  day's  papers 
contain  long  reports  of  these  discussions,  and  leading 
articles  of  considerable  length  for  or  against  this  or  that 
particular  clause  in  the  bill.  It  may  be  of  interest  at 
such  a  time  to  point  out  that  much  of  the  discussion 
turns  on  the  question  whether  the  government  ought  or 
ought  not  to  stand  by  the  terms  of  what  was  called  the 
Cowper-Temple  amendment  to  the  education  measure 
introduced  by  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster.  I  can  assure  my 
readers  that  I  have  no  intention  to  discuss  in  these  pages 
either  the  education  measure  of  1870  or  that  of  1902, 
and  only  make  this  brief  reference  to  the  two  measures 
with  the  selfish  object  of  giving  my  portrait  of  Mr. 
Cowper-Temple  an  additional  touch  of  living  interest 
by  its  association  with  an  important  event  in  our  past 
history  which  is  making  its  mark  on  the  events  of  the 
present  day. 

I  remember  seeing  and  hearing  Cowper-Temple  many 
times  in  the  House  of  Commons  before  he  had  received 
that  addition  to  his  name  by  which  he  is  best  remem- 
bered now,  and  I  cannot  say  that  he  impressed  the 
House  as  a  brilliant  debater.  He  held  office  in  several 
administrations.  I  remember  him  best  as  First  Com- 
missioner of  Public  Works.  In  this  capacity  he  dis- 
tinguished himself  on  one  occasion  and  outside  the 

135 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

House  of  Commons  more  than  he  ever  had  done  by  any 
of  his  speeches  within  the  House.  He  had  introduced 
some  measure  for  the  limitation  or  regulation  of  the 
right  to  hold  public  meetings  in  Hyde  Park.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  alarm  felt  in  those  days  as  to  the 
possible  consequences  which  might  arise  to  the  cause 
of  law  and  order,  crown  and  constitution,  if  radicals 
and  freethinkers  and  such  like  disorderly  persons  were 
to  be  allowed  the  full  liberty  of  holding  their  meetings 
and  expounding  their  doctrines  at  any  time  they  thought 
fit,  and  to  any  numbers  they  could  gather  around  them, 
in  the  great  metropolitan  park.  I  do  not  remember 
the  exact  nature  of  the  limitations  or  regulations  which 
Cowper-Temple  proposed  to  introduce,  but  I  believe  that 
they  were  in  themselves  reasonable  and  not  illiberal. 
Much  indignation,  however,  was  aroused  by  Cowper- 
Temple's  measure  among  the  classes  who  usually  got  up 
and  attended  the  meetings,  and  an  extravagant  notion 
was  formed  as  to  the  limitations  which  the  author  of 
the  measure  intended  to  introduce.  Cowper-Temple 
acted  promptly  in  a  manner  which  amazed  some  of  his 
graver  colleagues,  but  which  roused  much  admiration 
in  many  minds,  and  I  am  free  to  say  in  my  own,  by  its 
spirit  and  its  pluck.  He  attended  a  meeting  called  in 
Hyde  Park  to  denounce  his  measure;  he  mounted  one 
of  the  platforms  and  boldly  delivered  a  speech  in  its 
defence :  lie  insisted  on  arguing  that  it  interfered  with 
no  genuine  public  right,  and  he  succeeded  in  winning 
not  only  the  attention  but  the  confidence  and  applause 
of  most  of  those  to  whom  he  addressed  his  courageous 
words.  I  had  never  before  thought  of  Cowper-Temple 
as  the  possible  orator  of  a  platform  in  Hyde  Park.  He 
had  always  seemed  to  me  an  entirely  formal,  methodical, 
and  somewhat  self-centred  sort  of  person,  and  I  must 
confess  that  my  estimate  of  him  was  greatly  changed 

136 


ANOTHER    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

by  his  remarkable  open-air  performance.  Such  a  per- 
formance was  certainly  not  quite  in  keeping  with  official 
rules  and  ministerial  etiquette;  but  I  could  not  help 
thinking  at  the  time  that  it  was  exactly  the  sort  of 
enterprise  which  Lord  Palmerston  would  in  his  heart 
have  highly  approved,  and  would  have  liked,  if  he 
might,  to  commend  in  public.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
Cowper-Temple's  unofficial  exploit  did  much  to  abate 
the  hostility  which  the  promoters  of  Hyde  Park  meet- 
ings were  stirring  up  against  the  new  methods  of  regu- 
lation. With  that  odd  incident  the  name  of  Cowper- 
Temple  is  associated  in  my  memory. 

Gathorne-Hardy  was,  in  the  early  sixties,  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous  men  on  the  conservative  side  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  educated  at  Shrews- 
bury and  at  Oxford,  won  some  distinction  at  Oriel, 
and  entered  Parliament  for  the  first  time  in  1856.  He 
rose  rapidly  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  was  almost 
from  the  very  first  recognized  as  an  influence  in  his 
party.  At  that  time  the  Conservatives  in  the  House  of 
Commons  had  not  much  to  boast  of  for  intellect  and 
for  debating  power,  so  far  as  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
party  were  concerned.  The  leader  of  the  party,  Dis- 
raeli, was,  of  course,  well  able  to  hold  his  own  against 
any  rival  in  debate,  and  he  had  among  his  leading 
colleagues  two  or  three  men  of  genuine  capacity  who 
would  have  reckoned  for  much  in  any  parliamentary 
assembly.  But  these  leading  men  were  not  well  sup- 
ported by  many  of  their  followers,  and  it  soon  came  to 
pass  that  Gathorne-Hardy  was  regarded  as  a  genuine 
strength  to  the  Conservatives  in  debate.  He  was  not 
an  orator  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word,  and  he  could 
not  be  called  a  brilliant  debater.  He  had  no  gift  of 
humor,  and  his  argument  was  rarely  brightened  by 
anything  like  a  flash  of  eloquence.  But  he  was  a  fluent 

137 


PORTRAITS    OP    THE    SIXTIES 

speaker,  he  had  a  clear  and  powerful  voice,  his  style 
was  always  correct,  he  appeared  to  have  an  excellent 
memory  for  facts  and  for  the  arguments  of  an  opponent, 
and  it  was  possible  sometimes,  while  listening  to  one  of 
his  more  animated  speeches,  to  be  carried  away  so  far 
as  to  believe  him  a  genuine  master  of  debate.  But  the 
impression  did  not  long  keep  its  hold  on  the  mind  of 
the  listener,  and  most  of  those  who  had  heard  him  often 
found  themselves  settling  down  into  the  conviction  that 
Gathorne-Hardy  could  always  make  a  good  speech,  and 
could  never  make  a  great  speech. 

I  remember  hearing  John  Bright  once  say  that  a  man 
whose  speeches  were  all  equally  good  could  never  be  a 
great  orator,  and  I  think  the  observation  had  much 
critical  justice  in  it.  Without  imagination  there  can- 
not be  eloquence  of  the  higher  order,  and  the  gift  of 
bold  imagination  brings  with  it  as  a  matter  of  course 
the  liability  to  make  mistakes  and  the  ambition  which 
sometimes  overleaps  itself  and  falls  on  the  other  side. 
Gathorne-Hardy's  speeches  were  always  loud,  clear,  and 
fluent;  their  language  was  always  correct,  and  their 
argument  was  direct  and  well  sustained,  but  they  main- 
tained what  may  be  called  a  dead  level.  When  the 
debate  was  over  the  speech  soon  passed  from  the  mem- 
ory of  the  listeners.  Still  it  must  be  owned  that  the 
faculty  which  enables  a  man  to  be  safely  relied  upon 
for  a  good  speech  in  any  debate  was  one  of  much  value 
to  the  conservative  party  when  Gathorne-Hardy  was 
in  his  prime.  He  held  many  high  offices  in  conserva- 
tive administrations,  and  his  career  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was  brought  to  a  close  by  his  elevation  to  the 
peerage  as  Lord  Cranbrook.  Perhaps  he  will  be  best 
remembered  by  the  fact  that  in  1865  he  became  a  can- 
didate for  the  representation  of  Oxford  University, 
in  opposition  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  he  succeeded  in 

138 


GATIIO1SNE    GATHORNE-HAKDY    AND    JOHN    STEW- 
AKT   QATUOKNE-HARDY,    M.P'S. 


ANOTHER    PARLIAMENTARY    GROUP 

defeating  the  greatest  English  statesman  of  his  age. 
Gladstone  was  immediately  elected  as  representative  of 
South  Lancashire,  and  with  that  event  began  a  new  era 
in  England's  political  life.  The  most  devoted  among 
Gathorne-Hardy's  friends  and  admirers  did  not  go  so 
far  as  to  say  that  the  defeat  of  Gladstone  was  a  triumph 
won  by  the  political  genius  of  the  successful  candidate, 
for  the  majority  of  the  voters  at  that  election  would 
most  assuredly  have  given  their  support  to  any  tory 
candidate  whatever  who  came  forward  in  opposition  to 
Gladstone.  Still,  a  victory  is  a  victory,  and  the  fact  that 
he  defeated  such  a  man  as  Gladstone  was  undoubtedly, 
to  adopt  a  phrase  brought  much  into  notice  lately,  "  a 
feather  in  the  cap  "  of  Gathorne-Hardy.  Lord  Cran- 
brook  must  at  least  have  had  the  gratifying  conviction 
that  no  biographer  could  bring  out  a  life  of  Gladstone 
which  did  not  contain  Gathorne-Hardy's  name,  and 
record  the  fact  that  he  had  "  unmuzzled  "  Gladstone. 

The  portrait  of  John  Stewart  Gathorne-Hardy  is 
that  of  the  present  Lord  Medway,  eldest  son  of  Lord 
Cranbrook.  Lord  Medway  when  still  only  a  Mr.  Ga- 
thorne-Hardy sat  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons during  many  years,  but  I  must  say  did  not  do 
much,  or  so  far  as  I  can  recollect,  attempt  much  to  make 
for  himself  a  parliamentary  reputation.  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that  the  historical  fame  of  the  family  thus 
far  must  rest  chiefly  on  the  fact  that  its  leading  mem- 
ber accomplished,  although  unwittingly,  the  unmuz- 
zling of  Mr.  Gladstone. 


CHAPTEK  XI 

FEOM  COMMONS  TO  LOEDS 

ON  August  30,  1861,  the  statesman  who  had  been  so 
long  known  in  English  political  life  as  Lord  John 
Russell  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  as  Earl 
Russell  of  Kingston-Russell  in  Dorset  and  Viscount 
Amberley  of  Ardsalla  in  Meath.  A  few  days  earlier 
Lord  John  Russell  delivered  his  farewell  address  to 
the  electors  of  the  City  of  London,  which  he  had  rep- 
resented for  some  forty  years.  In  this  farewell  address 
Lord  John  in  a  few  sentences  of  melancholy  humor 
likened  himself  to  a  celebrated  emperor  of  three  cen- 
turies before  who  had  been  engaged  in  all  the  great 
movements  of  his  time,  and,  fancying  that  he  would 
like  to  see  what  might  happen  after  his  death,  had  the 
pomps  of  his  funeral  prepared,  and  took  part  himself 
as  chief  mourner  in  the  solemn  rites.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  that  Lord  John  Russell  might 
well  have  regarded  his  elevation  to  the  House  of  Lords 
as  the  funeral  ceremonial  of  his  political  life.  His 
whole  public  career  had  been  associated  with  the  strug- 
gles and  triumphs  of  his  party  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  had  known,  as  friends  and  companions,  or  as  political 
opponents  and  rivals,  many  men  whose  names  at  the 
time  of  his  leaving  the  representative  chamber  seemed 
to  belong  to  the  history  of  the  far  past.  As  Disraeli 
once  said  of  him,  he  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Fox  and 
measured  swords  with  Canning.  He  had  been  addressed 

140 


FROM    COMMONS    TO   LORDS 

in  language  of  eloquent  poetic  panegyric  by  Thomas 
Moore,  and  he  had  had  many  conversations  at  Elba  with 
the  dethroned  Emperor  Napoleon.  His  work  as  a  states- 
man did  not,  indeed,  close  with  his  removal  from  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  he  was  yet  as  prime-minister 
to  introduce  a  measure  of  reform  which  was,  like  other 
measures  of  reform,  defeated  by  a  coalition  between 
the  conservative  opposition  and  a  number  of  seceding 
Liberals,  but  which  led  to  the  introduction  of  a  still 
more  advanced  reform  measure  by  a  conservative  gov- 
ernment, whose  leading  members  saw  that  such  a  change 
in  the  political  system  was  inevitable,  and  made  up  their 
minds  to  have  the  honor  and  advantage  of  introducing 
it  themselves.  But  it  is  nevertheless  an  unquestionable 
fact  that  when  a  man  who  has  played  for  many  years 
a  leading  part  in  the  House  of  Commons  becomes  en- 
dowed with  a  title  and  is  transferred  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  his  political  activity  seems  to  have  sunk  into 
something  like  a  living  grave.  I  heard  many  of 
Lord  Russell's  speeches  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  I 
never  could  suppress  a  feeling  of  melancholy  when  I 
recalled  the  effect  which  I  had  often  seen  him  produce 
as  leader  of  a  government  or  a  party  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  When  we  think  of  the  career  of  Lord  John 
Russell  we  do  not  naturally  associate  it  with  the  sixties, 
but  his  portrait  is  distinctly  appropriate  to  this  volume 
if  it  were  but  for  the  fact  that  the  early  part  of  the 
sixties  heard  his  farewell  to  that  great  political  assem- 
bly in  which  he  had  won  his  fame. 

My  first  personal  recollections  of  Lord  John  Russell 
belong  to  the  year  1858,  when  he  attended  a  meeting 
of  the  Social  Science  Association,  held  in  Liverpool, 
where  I  was  then  working  as  a  journalist.  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  be  presented  to  him  and  to  have  some 
talks  with  him,  and  I  can  well  remember  what  a  de- 

141 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

light  it  was  to  ine  to  hear  him  tell  of  his  meetings  with 
Napoleon  and  other  remarkable  experiences  of  his 
early  years.  It  seemed  to  carry  one  back  into  a  far- 
away time  of  thrilling  historical  movement  and  illus- 
trious figures  thus  to  have  speech  with  a  man  who  could 
tell  from  his  own  personal  knowledge  of  such  men  and 
such  days.  After  I  had  settled  in  London  I  had  many 
opportunities  in  each  session  of  hearing  Lord  John 
Russell  in  parliamentary  debate.  He  was  assuredly 
one  of  the  most  effective  debaters  to  whom  I  have  ever 
listened.  It  would  not,  perhaps,  be  possible  to  rank 
him  with  the  greatest  parliamentary  orators,  with  men 
like  Gladstone  and  Bright,  or  even  with  Disraeli  and 
Disraeli's  leader,  Lord  Derby.  There  was  an  almost 
indefinable  something  wanting  in  Lord  John  Russell's 
speaking  which  prevented  him  from  taking  a  place 
among  orators  of  the  highest  order.  Perhaps  he  wanted 
imagination,  although  it  is  certain  that  at  the  opening 
of  his  public  career  he  was  regarded  by  most  of  those 
who  knew  him  as  a  child  of  genius,  as  the  apostle  of  a 
new  political  creed,  as  a  young  man  of  intrepid  courage 
and  adventurous  spirit.  Perhaps  he  wanted  passion,  al- 
though this,  too,  was  a  quality  with  which  those  who 
knew  him  in  his  earlier  days  of  political  life  regarded 
him  as  eminently  endowed.  Perhaps  his  voice  had  not 
the  power  and  musical  thrill  which  lent  strength  and 
charm  to  the  eloquence  of  Gladstone,  Lord  Derby,  and 
Bright.  It  is  certain  that  those  who  only  knew  Lord 
John  Russell  as  a  parliamentary  debater  in  the  sixties 
would  hardly  have  recognized  in  him  the  qualities 
which  his  friends  at  the  opening  of  his  career  appear  to 
have  considered  especially  his. 

The  predominant  quality  of  Lord  Russell's  eloquence 
in  these  later  days  was  its  somewhat  cold  and  clear 
reasonableness  of  argument.  Russell  analyzed  or  dis- 

142 


FROM    COMMONS    TO    LORDS 

sected  the  case  of  his  parliamentary  opponents  with 
keen,  firm,  and  merciless  touch  and  exposed  its  weak- 
nesses with  unsparing  skill.  There  was  a  fine  vein  of 
scorn  in  his  eloquence  and  he  had  a  keen  and  delicate 
sense  of  humor.  Some  of  his  happy,  humorous  retorts 
have  become  proverbial  and  are  still  often  quoted  in 
political  debate  and  in  newspaper  criticism.  Then,  too, 
it  must  be  said  that  when  he  had  to  deal  with  some  ques- 
tion which  made  a  direct  appeal  to  the  deeper  emotions 
of  men  he  could  delight  and  uplift  his  hearers  by  pas- 
sages of  real  eloquence.  On  these  occasions  I  have  felt 
more  than  once  that  Lord  Russell  had  surely  established 
his  claim  to  be  ranked  among  the  orators,  as  I  have 
thought  that  he  might  under  other  conditions  have  rival- 
led George  Canning  or  Sydney  Smith  in  wit  and  humor. 
But  Russell  was  too  earnestly  devoted  to  the  practical 
work  of  his  parliamentary  career  to  allow  himself  much 
time  for  the  culture  of  his  eloquence,  or  to  go  out  of  his 
direct  line  of  argument  in  order  to  make  his  antagonist 
ridiculous  by  a  jest.  I  do  not  remember  any  other  ex- 
ample in  my  time  of  an  English  statesman  who  had  so 
many  gifts  for  great  debate  and  yet  who  did  not  quite 
succeed  in  winning  a  place  with  the  greatest  orators. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  Lord  John  Russell  was  ever 
very  popular  among  the  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, even  on  his  own  side.  He  was  shy  by  nature; 
cold  and  reserved  in  manner,  but  in  manner  only,  for 
the  universal  testimony  of  those  who  really  knew  him 
is  that  he  had  a  feeling  heart,  a  warm  and  generous 
temperament,  and  a  most  tender  love  for  those  who 
loved  him.  I  feel  quite  sure  that  the  seeming  coldness 
and  constraint  of  his  manner  was  due  altogether  to  that 
shyness  which  prevented  him  from  showing  his  real  self 
in  the  company  of  strangers.  The  ready  means  by 
which  a  statesman  of  a  more  expansive  temperament 

143 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

can  attain  an  easy  popularity  were  denied  to  Lord  John 
Russell,  the  formal  presentation  to  whom  of  a  new- 
comer was  always  a  somewhat  chilling  ceremonial.  I 
have  sometimes  felt  disposed  to  believe  that  this  same 
peculiarity  of  temperament  may  have  been  one  reason 
why  even  the  finest  passages  of  his  parliamentary  elo- 
quence showed  a  certain  restraint  and  were  not  allowed 
their  full  and  natural  expression.  There  was  one  pecul- 
iarity in  Lord  John  Russell's  speeches  which  I  have 
not  noticed  in  those  of  other  great  parliamentary  de- 
baters. When  even  a  real  orator  delivers  an  important 
speech  the  listener  feels,  as  it  comes  to  a  close,  that  the 
orator  has  said  all  he  wanted  to  say  and  has,  so  far  as 
he  is  concerned,  exhausted  his  subject.  But  when  Lord 
John  Russell  concluded  one  of  his  finest  and  most  con- 
vincing speeches  the  impression  of  most  listeners  was 
that  he  had  yet  a  great  deal  to  say  which  might  have 
been  said — that  he  had  not  nearly  exhausted  the  treas- 
ury of  his  ideas,  and  that  he  could  have  added  many 
other  illustration^  and  arguments  if  he  had  not  been  un- 
willing to  occupy  too  long  the  attention  of  the  House. 
My  judgment  is  that  Russell  never  did  complete  justice 
to  his  own  oratorical  capacity,  and  that  if  he  had  been 
a  little  less  fastidious  and  more  daring  he  might  have 
ranked  among  the  most  eloquent  speakers  of  his  time. 

Lord  Russell  was  a  voluminous  writer,  and  published 
several  memoirs,  some  historical  works,  and  actually 
two  tragedies,  neither  of  which  is,  I  take  it  for  granted, 
known  to  the  play-goers  of  the  present  day.  He  was  an 
intense  lover  of  literature  and  of  art,  and  throughout 
the  whole  of  his  life  he  welcomed  in  his  home  the  com- 
panionship of  men  and  women  of  genius  and  culture. 
He  was  one  of  the  closest  friends  of  Thomas  Moore, 
and  in  later  days  had  cultivated  the  friendship  of  Dick- 
ens and  Thackeray.  His  second  wife,  the  late  Countess 

144 


FROM    COMMONS    TO    LORDS 

Russell,  was  the  best  companion  and  friend  to  him, 
and  helped  him  with  devotion  and  intellectual  support 
in  the  accomplishment  of  every  object  he  undertook.  I 
had  the  honor  of  Lady  Russell's  friendship  for  more 
than  twenty  years,  until  her  death  in  the  beginning  of 
1898.  I  have  never  known  a  more  perfect  illustration 
of  womanhood's  highest  order.  She  was  endowed  with 
a  fine  intellect,  an  exquisite  taste,  and  a  noble  nature. 
She  retained  to  the  last  her  warm  interest  in  every 
cause  and  movement  that  promised  any  increase  of 
human  happiness.  She  loved  literature  and  art.  She 
was  the  true,  tender  friend  of  the  poor  and  lowly  who 
came  within  the  range  of  her  influence.  For  many 
years  before  her  death  she  had  withdrawn  altogether 
from  London  life  and  spent  her  days  in  Pembroke 
Lodge,  Richmond  Park,  but  she  never  allowed  the 
quietude  of  her  home  to  make  it  a  hermitage.  Her 
friends  were  always  welcome  at  Pembroke  Lodge,  and 
she  had  crowds  of  friends  who  were  only  too  glad  to 
visit  her.  She  maintained  to  the  last  the  closest  inter- 
est in  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  political  and  social 
life  from  which  she  had  withdrawn.  Lady  Russell 
must  have  known  during  her  time  almost  all  the  famous 
men  and  women  who  belonged  to  England,  or  who  came 
there  from  any  other  part  of  the  civilized  world.  She 
had  the  most  delightful  reminiscences  of  the  acquaint- 
anceships thus  made,  and  she  seemed  to  take  a  pleasure 
in  entertaining  her  friends  with  them.  I  believe  that 
the  story  of  her  life,  with  ample  extracts  from  her  cor- 
respondence, is  to  be  told  before  long  by  her  gifted 
and  devoted  daughter,  Lady  Agatha  Russell.  No  other 
hand  could  fittingly  accomplish  such  a  work,  and  there 
need  be  little  hesitation  in  predicting  that  the  book  will 
command  the  attention  of  the  whole  reading  public. 
Another  distinguished  member  of  the  Russell  family 
w  145 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

is  Mr.  George  W.  E.  Russell,  whose  Collections  and  Rec- 
ollections, although  published  anonymously,  have  not 
been  able  to  conceal  their  authorship,  and  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  most  of  us  as  confidently  as  if  they  bore  their 
writer's  name.  I  cannot  help  feeling  much  regret  that 
George  Russell  has  not  resumed  his  career  as  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  held  office  twice  in 
liberal  administrations,  and  during  his  later  years  in 
the  House  he  gave  brilliant  evidence  of  a  capacity  for 
parliamentary  debate.  George  Russell  has  undoubtedly 
many  strings  to  his  bow,  if  I  may  revive  an  almost  for- 
gotten phrase,  and  he  never  fails  to  make  work  enough 
for  his  intellect,  his  energies,  and  his  kindly,  sympa- 
thetic nature  outside  the  domain  of  Parliament.  Still, 
I  must  say  that  I  cannot  help  regarding  the  House  of 
Commons  as  the  field  in  which  he  could  give  the  most 
effective  service  to  humanity  and  win  the  highest  dis- 
tinction. He  could  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  a  con- 
stituency at  the  next  general  election  which  would  feel 
proud  to  secure  him  as  a  representative,  and  I  can  only 
hope  that  before  long  he  may  be  seen  again  in  his 
former  place  on  the  treasury  bench. 

No  statesman  in  my  time  brought  with  him  so  many 
distinct  recollections  of  great  past  days  as  did  Lord 
John  Russell.  As  from  the  gallery  of  the  House  of 
Commons  while  Russell  was  still  a  member,  I  listened 
to  one  of  his  speeches,  I  found  myself  carried  back  in 
imagination  to  the  great  days  before  the  first  Reform 
bill,  to  that  tremendous  parliamentary  and  national 
struggle  which  ended  happily  in  a  peaceful  revolution, 
though  at  one  time  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  destined  to 
be  settled  by  a  revolution  costing  a  heavier  price.  But 
the  listener  to  Lord  John  Russell  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was  carried  back  even  farther  than  the  days 
of  the  great  national  struggle  for  reform ;  he  knew  that 

146 


FROM    COMMONS    TO    LORDS 

he  was  listening  to  a  man  who,  as  a  boy,  had  known 
Fox,  and  who  came  into  the  world  only  four  years  after 
the  birth  of  Byron.  Lord  John  Russell  had  lived 
through  the  great  literary  age  of  Scott  and  Wordsworth, 
Shelley  and  Keats;  he  had  known  the  great  painters 
and  sculptors  and  men  of  science  belonging  to  that 
immemorial  time;  and  he  had  seen  the  up-coming  and 
the  growth  of  the  age,  not  less  wonderful,  which  pro- 
duced Dickens  and  Thackeray,  Tennyson  and  Brown- 
ing, Darwin,  Richard  Owen  and  John  Stuart  Mill.  He 
had  seen  in  political  life  the  rise  of  such  men  as  Glad- 
stone and  Disraeli,  Cobden  and  Bright,  and  it  was  an 
intellectual  treat  to  hear  him  compare  the  great  ones  of 
the  present  with  the  great  ones  of  the  past.  Unlike 
many  men  who  have  lived  to  a  great  age  and  studied 
successive  changing  generations,  Earl  Russell,  even  in 
his  latest  years,  was  quick  to  recognize  rising  merit  in 
politics,  literature,  or  art,  and  never  entertained  the 
idea  that  human  greatness  had  come  to  an  end  with  the 
days  when  his  own  activity  and  his  own  fame  had  reach- 
ed their  zenith.  Nor  was  he  ever  governed  in  his  esti- 
mate of  a  public  man  by  the  consideration  that  the  pub- 
lic man  was,  or  was  not,  on  his  own  side  of  politics. 
I  remember  being  much  interested  in  Earl  Russell's 
cordial  appreciation  of  the  eloquence  of  Lord  Derby. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  Lord  Derby,  during  his 
official  career,  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  political  doc- 
trines Lord  Russell  advocated,  but  Russell  became  ani- 
mated and  enthusiastic  while  describing  in  conversation 
the  effect  produced  upon  him  by  Lord  Derby's  elo- 
quence. I  must  say  that  I  thought  Lord  Russell  some- 
what overrated  Lord  Derby's  capacity  as  an  orator,  and 
that  I  could  not  myself,  much  as  I  admired  his  elo- 
quence, regard  him  as  quite  on  a  level  with  Gladstone 
and  Bright.  But  what  interested  me  most  in  the  whole 

147 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

incident  was  the  evidence  it  gave  of  Lord  Russell's 
absolute  impartiality  in  judging  of  political  speakers, 
and  also  the  evidence  it  gave  that  he  was  not  one  of  those 
who  believed  that  all  true  greatness  ended  with  their 
own  prime.  Lord  Russell's  intellect  was  like  his  style 
of  speaking,  above  all  things  clear  and  lucid.  No  cloud 
of  prejudice  ever  obscured  for  him  the  real  meaning  of 
the  question  at  issue.  In  his  conversation  as  in  his 
public  speaking  one  was  delighted  now  and  then  by 
those  gleams  of  warm  and  almost  impassioned  emotion 
which  showed  that  he  had  in  him  much  of  the  spirit  of 
the  orator  as  well  as  the  instinct  of  the  artist.  There 
have  been  greater  speakers  in  the  oratorical  sense  dur- 
ing our  time  than  Lord  Russell,  and  there  have  been 
greater  statesmen,  but  I  question  whether  the  nine- 
teenth century  ever  knew  a  political  leader  who  had 
so  many  interesting  experiences,  so  many  delightful 
friendships,  and  who  got  so  much  out  of  life  as  was  the 
happy  lot  of  the  statesman  whom  English  history  will 
always  remember  best  by  the  name  of  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell. 

The  sixties  saw  the  removal  of  another  remarkable 
figure  from  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  House  of 
Lords.  The  word  remarkable  is  one  which  applies  with 
a  special  accuracy  to  the  figure  of  Sir  Edward  Bulwer 
Lytton,  who  was  raised  to  the  peerage  in  1866.  Few 
men  have  ever  competed  in  so  many  different  fields  and 
obtained  so  considerable  a  success  in  each  of  them  as 
Lord  Lytton.  He  wrote  novels,  plays,  poems,  essays, 
satires,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  everything  he  did 
was  well  done.  In  some  of  his  novels  and  in  some  of 
his  plays  there  was  nothing  wanting  to  complete  suc- 
cess but  that  one  divine  spark  of  genius  without  which 
success  is  only  a  triumph  of  its  own  time.  Some  of 
Lord  Lytton's  novels  divided  popularity  with  the  great 

148 


THE   FIRST   LORD   LYTTON 
After  Maclisc.      Painted   at   Knclticorth   in    1850 


FROM    COMMONS   TO    LORDS 

creations  of  Scott  and  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  Some 
of  his  plays  held  the  stage  for  many  years  as  no  other 
contemporaneous  dramatic  works  could  do,  and  indeed 
some  of  them  hold  the  stage  still.  It  would  be  easy  to 
point  out  the  defects  of  Lord  Lytton's  work  in  prose 
and  verse,  the  meretricious  glare  and  glitter  of  the  style, 
the  unreality  of  the  emotions,  the  sickly  sentimentality 
which  spoils  so  many  romantic  passages,  the  tendency 
to  caricature  which  often  interferes  with  the  effect  "^of 
the  characters  intended  to  be  comic.  But  when  a  critic 
had  said  all  that  and  much  more  which  might  be  said 
with  equal  justice,  the  fact  still  remains  that  Bulwer 
Lytton  made  a  success  not  possible  to  be  achieved  even 
for  a  lifetime  without  original  artistic  merit.  Many  of 
his  best  novels  were  written  by  their  author  under  very 
trying  conditions.  He  belonged  to  an  old  English 
county  family;  his  mother  was  heiress  of  Knebworth, 
and  he  was  brought  up  to  a  life  of  ease  and  luxury; 
but  he  made  an  unfortunate  marriage  which  caused  for 
a  time  his  complete  separation  from  his  parents,  and  he 
had  to  work  hard  for  a  living  like  any  other  penniless 
young  author.  The  family  estates  came  to  him  in  the 
end,  but  for  some  years  he  was  dependent  almost  alto- 
gether on  the  work  of  his  pen,  and  it  was  not  unnatural 
that  when  he  found  he  had  struck  upon  a  paying  line  of 
literature,  he  should  strive  to  please  his  public  in  the 
style  that  had  proved  acceptable  to  it. 

At  a  later  period  of  Bulwer's  life,  when  he  was  not 
in  need  either  of  money  or  popularity,  he  wrote  and 
published  one  or  two  serial  novels  anonymously,  and 
each  of  them  won  distinct  and  remarkable  success,  al- 
though in  neither  case  did  the  public  suppose  the  new 
book  to  be  the  work  of  its  old  favorite.  The  truth  is 
that  Bulwer  could  do  well  anything  he  earnestly  endeav- 
ored to  do.  He  never  reached  to  the  height  to  which 

149 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

only  genius  can  rise,  but  he  could  accomplish  all  that 
can  be  accomplished  by  splendid  talents,  wide  culture, 
high  ambition,  and  untiring  perseverance.  His  politi- 
cal career  gives  the  most  striking  proof  of  this  faculty. 
Nature,  mere  physical  nature,  would  seem  to  have  de- 
nied to  Bulwer  Lytton  some  of  the  essential  qualities  of 
an  orator.  He  suffered,  at  least  during  his  years  of 
political  life,  from  some  trouble  of  the  palate,  which 
cruelly  marred  his  articulation,  and  he  was  at  the  same 
time  oppressed  by  a  degree  of  deafness  which  rendered 
it  very  difficult  for  him  to  follow  the  course  of  a  de- 
bate. Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  succeeded  on  sev- 
eral occasions  in  commanding  the  attention  and  winning 
the  enthusiastic  applause  of  a  House  of  Commons  ac- 
customed to  the  eloquence  of  Gladstone  and  Disraeli 
and  Bright  One  other  difficulty  which  might  have  stood 
in  the  way  of  his  success  as  a  parliamentary  debater  was 
the  fact  that  he  had  in  his  earlier  career  obtained  a  seat 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  had  sat  there  for  some  ses- 
sions, and  had  proved  a  failure.  The  story  went  at  the 
time  that  one  of  his  bitterest  quarrels  with  his  wife 
arose  out  of  the  utter  breakdown  of  his  first  effort  to 
address  the  House  and  of  the  merciless  scorn  and  jeers 
with  which  she  greeted  his  humiliation.  But  he  was 
not  a  man  who  could  quietly  put  up  with  failure  in  any 
field  where  it  was  his  ambition  to  win  success.  He  had 
proved  this  again  and  again  in  his  literary  and  dra- 
matic work,  in  the  resolute  determination  with  which 
he  had  set  himself  to  recover  any  temporary  failure, 
and  the  keen,  critical  self-examination  by  which  he  had 
brought  himself  to  see  the  reasons  for  the  mishap  and 
the  possibility  of  retrieving  it  by  a  better  attempt  in  a 
more  congenial  style. 

Having  accomplished  as  high  a  popularity  as  could 
well  be  his  in  literature  and  the  drama,  Bulwer  appears 

150 


FROM    COMMONS   TO    LORDS 

to  have  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  win  success 
in  the  House  of  Commons  also.  He,  therefore,  returned 
to  Parliament,  and  it  was  during  this  later  part  of  his 
career  that  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  hear  two  of  his 
successful  speeches.  When  he  began  the  first  of  these 
speeches  the  chief  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  crowded 
House,  listening  eagerly  to  his  words,  was  the  difficulty 
of  understanding  what  the  orator  was  trying  to  say.  His 
articulation  was  so  imperfect  that  in  the  opening  sen- 
tences of  the  speech  the  House  was  thrown  into  some- 
thing like  consternation.  Every  one,  on  whatever  side 
of  politics,  was  sincerely  anxious  that  he  should  do 
well,  and  no  one  was  content  to  give  up  the  task  of  try- 
ing to  understand  him.  But  as  he  went  on  he  got  over 
the  nervous  embarrassment  which  was  adding  to  his  nat- 
ural defects  of  utterance,  and  he  seemed  to  understand 
the  absolute  necessity  of  getting  out  each  word  distinct- 
ly and  separately,  and  thus  encouraging  his  audience  to 
pay  attention  to  the  speech.  He  took  care  to  speak  in 
measured  tones  and  not  to  allow  the  words  to  run  into 
one  another,  and  although  the  voice  was  still  hollow 
and  unmusical,  he  was  able  to  impress  every  listener 
with  the  full  meaning  of  each  sentence  and  phrase. 
Then  the  House  began  to  understand  with  universal 
gratification  that  it  was  listening  to  a  speech  full  of 
exalted  thought,  splendid  phraseology,  ingenious  argu- 
ment, and  brilliant  sarcasm.  I  have  never  listened  to 
any  other  speaker  who  had  to  contend  with  such  physi- 
cal difficulties  and  who  succeeded  in  accomplishing  so 
wonderful  a  success.  No  doubt  the  speech  was  care- 
fully prepared  in  every  sentence,  but  it  did  not  seem  to 
be  a  mere  piece  of  studied  declamation,  a  glowing  essay 
committed  to  memory  and  got  by  heart;  it  had  all  the 
effect  of  a  piece  of  spontaneous  eloquence.  There  was 
one  unanimous  burst  of  applause  when  the  speaker  re- 

151 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

sumed  his  seat,  and  there  was,  I  think,  one  common 
feeling  of  delight  that  the  orator  had  succeeded,  all  the 
greater  because  of  the  knowledge  that  a  triumph  over 
such  physical  difficulties  could  be  and  actually  had  been 
achieved. 

Many  of  the  phrases  employed  by  Lytton  in  that 
speech  and  in  others  stamped  themselves  on  the  mem- 
ory of  the  House  of  Commons,  were  quoted  again  and 
again  in  subsequent  debates  and  at  meetings  out-of- 
doors,  and  some  of  them  are  still  preserved  by  quota- 
tion in  the  political  utterances  of  our  own  day.  So 
peculiar  was  the  impression  produced  on  my  mind  by 
the  first  of  Lytton's  speeches  to  which  I  listened  that 
while  at  the  present  moment  I  hardly  remember  the 
subject  of  the  debate,  I  have  the  most  distinct  recollec- 
tion of  the  orator's  glowing  style,  his  happy  illustra- 
tion, and  his  superb  skill  in  phrase-making.  He  never 
could  have  succeeded  as  a  great  parliamentary  debater, 
for  his  defective  hearing  made  it  impossible  that  he 
could  reply  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  to  a  speech  de- 
livered in  the  course  of  the  evening's  debate,  but  when 
the  opportunity  was  afforded  him  of  opening  the  dis- 
cussion he  was  able  to  prove  himself  a  parliamentary 
orator  of  a  very  high  order.  The  higher  criticism  would 
have  found  the  same  faults  in  his  parliamentary  style 
as  it  found  in  the  style  of  his  romances  and  his  plays, 
but  it  was  beyond  all  question  that  he  had  accomplished 
just  the  same  sort  of  success  in  the  House  of  Commons 
as  in  literature  and  the  drama.  If  he  was  not  such  a 
novelist  as  Dickens  or  Thackeray,  neither  was  he  such 
an  orator  as  Gladstone  or  Bright,  but  as  it  could  not  be 
denied  that  he  had  won  a  high  position  among  story- 
tellers and  playwrights,  neither  could  it  be  denied  that 
he  had  won  a  high  position  among  parliamentary  ora- 
tors. When  he  became  Colonial  Secretary  in  Lord 

152 


FROM    COMMONS   TO    LORDS 

Derby's  government  he  did  good  work  by  calling  into 
existence  the  colonies  of  British  Columbia  and  Queens- 
land, and  it  was  he  who  had  the  honor  of  sending  Mr. 
Gladstone  out  on  that  mission  to  inquire  into  the  griev- 
ances of  the  Ionian  Islands,  which  had  such  important 
and  memorable  results.  Thus  he  added  a  new  honor 
to  those  he  had  already  won.  The  same  kind  of  suc- 
cess attended  his  work  as  a  colonial  minister  as  that 
which  he  had  achieved  in  his  novels,  his  dramas,  and  his 
parliamentary  speeches.  There  were  others  greater 
than  he  in  every  field  he  cultivated,  but  his  name  will 
be  always  remembered  among  England's  novelists,  play- 
wrights, parliamentary  orators,  and  colonial  ministers. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  Bulwer  Lytton's  son, 
the  second  Earl  of  Lytton,  who,  like  his  father,  had  a 
remarkable  versatility  of  talent.  He  won  fame  for 
himself  by  the  poems  he  published  under  the  fictitious 
name  of  Owen  Meredith,  poems  which  it  must  be  owned 
showed  a  higher  reach  of  poetic  genius  than  any  of  those 
the  elder  Lytton  had  given  to  the  world.  The  second 
Lord  Lytton  also  wrote  prose  romances  of  unquestion- 
able literary  merit,  although  he  never  won  anything 
like  the  popularity  achieved  by  his  father  in  the  same 
path  of  literature.  The  second  Lord  Lytton  had,  as 
every  one  remembers,  a  distinguished  and  important 
career  as  a  diplomatist  in  nearly  all  the  great  cities  of 
Europe  and  in  Washington,  and  in  the  yet  more  im- 
portant position  of  Viceroy  of  India.  I  have  never  met 
a  man  more  charming  in  manners,  more  rich  in  artistic 
and  intellectual  ideas,  and  more  truly  sympathetic.  The 
memory  of  some  conversations  I  had  with  this  gifted 
man  must  always  belong  to  my  prized  possessions. 

Early  in  the  sixties  occurred  a  removal  from  Com- 
mons to  Lords  which  may  fittingly  be  commemorated  in 
this  chapter.  In  1861  Sir  Richard  Bethell,  then  At- 

153 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

torney-General,  was  made  Lord  Chancellor  with  the 
title  of  Baron  Westbury.  Richard  Bethell  had  been 
leader  of  the  Chancery  Bar,  and  was  said  to  have  earned 
a  larger  income  than  any  other  living  member  of  that 
branch  of  the  profession.  He  sat  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons for  many  years,  and  held  the  office  of  Solicitor- 
General  and  afterwards  of  Attorney-General  in  a  lib- 
eral administration.  Sir  Richard  Bethell  was  never 
much  of  a  politician  and  was  not  very  decided  in  his 
views  as  a  party  man.  He  began  his  political  career  as 
a  mild  Conservative,  then  joined  the  liberal  party  as 
what  might  be  termed  an  unbigoted  Liberal,  and  after- 
wards showed,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  a  certain  in- 
clination towards  conservative  principles.  But  he  made 
a  very  distinct  mark  on  the  House  of  Commons  by  his 
almost  unrivalled  skill  in  sarcasm  and  retort.  I  have 
never  heard  in  the  House  more  acrid,  corrosive,  and  in- 
tensely amusing  utterances  of  scorn  and  satire  than 
those  which  used  frequently  to  come  from  the  lips  of 
Sir  Richard  Bethell.  The  satire  was  all  the  more 
scorching  because  of  the  bland  sweetness  with  which  it 
was  delivered.  Bethell's  way  was  to  let  his  eyelids 
droop  as  if  he  were  affected  by  a  sudden  access  of  shy- 
ness, just  as  he  was  about  to  pour  out  on  some  opponent 
in  debate  his  most  vitriolic  sarcasm,  and  to  deliver  this 
sarcasm  in  tones  of  dulcet  gentleness,  as  if  he  were  pay- 
ing a  delicate  compliment  by  which  he  hoped  to  endear 
himself  further  to  its  recipient.  He  had  a  clear,  im- 
pressive voice,  and  could  speak  powerfully  whenever  he 
thought  fit,  but  he  was  sure  to  adopt  the  cadences  of  be- 
witching blandness  whenever  he  seized  on  the  chance 
of  making  his  opponent  an  object  for  the  ridicule  of  the 
House.  When  he  passed  into  the  House  of  Lords  he  al- 
most bewildered  that  grave  assembly  on  the  rare  occa- 
sions which  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  taking  part  in  a 

154 


FROM    COMMONS    TO    LORDS 

debate.  The  Lord  Chancellor  does  not  address  the 
Peers  from  the  Woolsack,  the  parliamentary  throne 
which  he  occupies  while  he  presides  over  the  debates,  but 
descends  and  takes  his  stand  on  the  nearest  available 
part  of  the  floor,  and  thence  delivers  his  speech. 

Lord  Westbury  had  an  opportunity  more  than  once 
of  pouring  scorn  on  some  motion  which  had  been  made, 
or  speech  which  had  been  delivered,  and  then  he  posi- 
tively scandalized  their  lordships  by  the  epigrammatic 
bitterness  of  his  sarcasm  and  the  mellifluous  accent 
in  which  it  dropped  from  his  lips.  I  remember  forming 
a  mental  comparison  between  the  satirical  style  of  Lord 
"Westbury  and  that  of  Robert  Lowe,  who,  during  the 
sixties,  was  making  himself  a  name  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  the  acuteness  and  brilliancy  of  his  satirical 
replies  to  the  arguments  of  his  political  opponents.  I 
came  to  the  conclusion  that,  effective  as  Robert  Lowe 
undoubtedly  was  in  all  such  parts  of  his  speeches,  he 
was  not  quite  so  effective  as  Richard  Bethell,  and  for 
one  especial  reason.  Lowe  jibed  and  jeered  at  his  oppo- 
nents in  rasping  tones  suited  to  the  words.  The  lis- 
tener was  amused  and  delighted,  but  not  surprised. 
Lowe  was  going  in  avowedly  and  obviously  for  making 
his  antagonists  feel  uncomfortable  and  angry.  The 
tone,  the  manner,  the  glances,  and  the  gestures  were  all 
in  keeping  with  that  kindly  purpose.  There  was  no 
charm  of  surprise  or  contrast  about  it.  But  when 
Bethell,  with  half-closed  eyes,  head  modestly  bent,  and 
mild  and  gentle  tones,  poured  gently  out  his  phrases  of 
vitriolic  scorn,  the  listener  felt  that  a  new  and  cruel 
charm  came  in  to  make  the  contempt  all  the  more  wither- 
ing to  its  object  and  more  intensely  amusing  to  the  audi- 
ence. 

Bethell's  career  in  Parliament  never  quite  equalled 
what  might  have  been  hoped  from  his  intellect  and  his 

155 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

practical  capacity.  He  was  a  great  lawyer  in  every 
sense  of  the  word  and  helped  to  carry  many  important 
legal  reforms  during  his  time.  He  had  a  keen  and  pow- 
erful intellect,  and  a  marvellous  faculty  for  seeing  into 
the  realities  of  things.  He  never  allowed  his  mind  to 
be  clouded  by  mere  conventionalities  or  time-honored 
prejudices.  He  was  one  of  the  ablest  debaters  of  his 
day  and  he  could  hold  his  own  against  any  opponent  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  Yet  he  did  not  take  as  high 
a  position  in  public  life  as  he  might  have  commanded  by 
the  mere  force  of  his  abilities.  Perhaps  one  reason  for 
his  want  of  complete  success  may  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  even  when  he  was  contending  for  a  great  and  just 
cause,  he  hardly  ever  thought  it  worth  his  while  to  ad- 
dress himself  to  the  highest  and  the  noblest  qualities  of 
man's  reason  and  purpose.  His  effort  always  appeared 
to  be  to  crumble  away  the  case  of  his  opponents  bit  by 
bit,  and  not  to  throw  his  soul  into  the  wider  issues  which 
the  question  brought  into  the  conflict.  His  appeal  was 
to  the  intellect,  rather  to  its  destructive  than  its  con- 
structive faculty,  and  he  seldom  made  any  appeal  to  the 
emotions.  It  may  be  said  that  this  was  quite  natural  in 
the  case  of  a  great  Chancery  lawyer,  but  there  have  been 
other  Chancery  lawyers  in  the  House  who  could  appeal 
to  the  emotions  and  the  higher  law,  and  I  believe  that 
the  want  of  this  capacity,  or  of  this  inclination,  was 
one  reason  why  Bethell  did  not  secure  in  the  House  of 
Commons  the  commanding  position  he  might  have  been 
expected  to  obtain.  He  was  a  very  high-minded  man 
and  endowed  with  a  generous,  unselfish  nature,  and  it 
is  quite  certain  that  some  of  the  official  troubles  in 
which  he  became  involved  arose  from  his  too  great  will- 
ingness to  lend  a  trusting  ear  to  the  representations  of 
some  members  of  his  family  who  were  dear  to  him  and 
whom  he  believed  he  could  trust  implicitly. 

156 


FROM    COMMONS    TO    LORDS 

Lord  Westbury  was  accused  of  having  allowed  an 
official  of  the  House  of  Lords  to  retire  and  receive  a  re- 
tiring pension  at  a  time  when  it  was  known  to  him  that 
a  serious  charge  connected  with  the  conduct  of  that 
official  in  another  public  office  was  hanging  over  him, 
and  that  Lord  Westbury  had  appointed  his  own  son  to 
the  place  thus  made  vacant.  The  whole  question  was 
taken  up  by  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  leading 
member  of  the  conservative  party  moved  a  vote  of  cen- 
sure on  the  Lord  Chancellor.  The  House  did  not  agree 
to  the  proposed  vote  of  censure,  but  it  adopted  an 
amendment  which,  although  acquitting  him  of  any  cor- 
rupt motive,  affirmed  that  the  granting  of  the  pension 
showed  a  laxity  of  practice  and  a  want  of  caution  with 
regard  to  the  interest  of  the  public.  Lord  Westbury 
had  to  resign  his  office  on  the  passing  of  this  resolution. 
The  general  impression  of  the  public  was  conveyed 
fairly  enough  by  the  terms  of  the  resolution.  No  one 
thought  that  Lord  Westbury  had  been  actuated  by  cor- 
rupt motives,  but  the  general  belief  was  that  he  had 
been  led  into  error  by  the  confidence  he  reposed  in  some 
members  of  his  family,  and  by  his  carelessness  in  regard 
to  the  minor  duties  of  his  high  official  position.  There 
were  many,  however,  who  thought  that  when  every  al- 
lowance had  been  made  for  the  need  of  maintaining  a 
high  standard  of  duty  in  public  office,  Lord  Westbury 
had  been  harshly  used,  and  that  an  unexpected  oppor- 
tunity had  eagerly  been  availed  of  by  those  whom  he 
had  made  his  enemies  in  his  days  of  bitter  controversy. 
Lord  Westbury  lived  for  some  years  after  what  must  be 
described  as  his  fall,  and  took  part  in  more  than  one 
great  parliamentary  controversy.  But  his  days  of  pub- 
lic influence  were  closed  forever  by  the  resolution  of 
the  House  of  Commons. 


CHAPTER  XII 

"  CROWNXESS  SOVEREIGNTIES  " 

THIS  volume  has  no  claim  to  be  adorned  by  the  por- 
traits of  many  imperial  and  royal  personages.  My 
political  and  social  ways  of  life  have  not  led  me  much 
into  such  august  circles,  and  although  I  have  seen  at 
different  times  and  in  various  places  a  goodly  number 
of  the  wearers  of  crowns,  I  have  preferred  to  present, 
in  these  pages,  only  the  portraits  of  men  and  women 
about  whom  I  had  something  to  say  more  than  might 
come  within  the  range  of  every  passing  observer.  The 
Emperor  of  Brazil  was  the  only  imperial  sovereign 
with  whom  I  had  any  personal  acquaintance,  and  lest  I 
should  seem  to  make  too  much  of  my  imperial  associate, 
I  think  it  right  to  inform  my  readers  that  the  Emperor 
of  Brazil  was  a  dethroned  sovereign  at  the  time  when  I 
had  the  honor  of  meeting  him.  I  met  Dom  Pedro,  the 
dethroned  Emperor  of  Brazil,  some  twelve  years  ago  at 
Cannes.  I  had  gone  there  in  the  winter  to  pay  a  visit 
to  an  invalid  friend,  and,  of  course,  it  was  a  matter  of 
common  talk  throughout  the  place  that  the  dethroned 
emperor  was  then  staying  there.  I  had,  however,  no 
expectation  of  meeting  Dom  Pedro,  and  certainly  had 
no  inclination  to  press  myself  on  his  notice.  But  the 
whole  story  of  his  reign  and  of  its  sudden  close  had 
always  been  to  me  a  subject  of  deep  interest,  and  I  was, 
I  hope  not  unpardonably,  gratified  when  a  Londoner  of 
my  acquaintance  who  was  then  on  a  visit  to  Cannes  told 

158 


"CROWNLESS    SOVEREIGNTIES" 

me  that  he  would  present  me  to  the  imperial  exile.  He 
assured  me  that  the  emperor  was  always  anxious  to 
have  an  opportunity  of  conversing  with  any  one  who 
had  taken  a  part  in  political  movements  or  in  literature, 
art,  or  science.  Thus  encouraged,  I  accepted  the  in- 
vitation, and  I  soon  found  that  my  London  friend  was 
well  qualified  to  offer  me  such  an  introduction.  Under 
his  escort  I  went  to  see  the  emperor  several  times  and 
had  some  conversations  with  him  in  which  he  showed 
himself  most  gracious  and  genial.  The  emperor  im- 
pressed me  by  the  dignity  and  the  sweetness  of  his  man- 
ner and  by  the  seemingly  unconscious  ease  with  which 
he  talked  to  put  his  visitors  at  their  ease.  He  showed  a 
quick  and  bright  interest  in  all  the  subjects  then  occu- 
pying the  mind  of  the  English  public,  and  conversed 
with  much  appreciation  about  political  parties  and 
statesmen.  He  offered  frankly  his  own  estimates  about 
this  or  that  conspicuous  personage,  and  was  anxious  to 
supplement  his  knowledge  by  any  information  which 
could  be  had  from  one  taking  part  in  public  affairs.. 
He  asked  many  keen,  intelligent  questions,  and  it  need 
hardly  be  said  that  a  man  can  never  manifest  more 
effectively  his  understanding  of  a  subject  than  by  the 
questions  which  he  asks  of  those  who  have  come  fresh 
from  the  scene  of  recent  movements.  I  was  surprised 
as  well  as  pleased  to  find  how  much  Dom  Pedro  knew 
of  English  public  affairs — surprised  because  he  had 
lived  so  long  removed  from  our  merely  local  interests 
and  never,  so  far  as  I  knew,  had  had  much  opportunity 
of  making  himself  personally  acquainted  with  English 
public  life  and  the  figures  which  move  across  its  fields. 
But  the  talk  was  for  the  most  part  about  letters  and 
art  and  the  progress  of  popular  education. 

Dom  Pedro  had  many  questions  to  ask  concerning  the 
promising  and  prominent  new-comers  in  literature  and 

159 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE  SIXTIES 

in  art;  about  the  latest  novelist  or  poet  who  had  made 
some  mark;  about  any  new  school  of  painters  which 
might  be  challenging  attention;  and  about  the  manner 
in  which  education  was  spreading  among  the  people  of 
the  British  Islands.  From  much  that  he  said  to  me,  al- 
though it  did  not  bear  directly  on  any  such  subject,  I 
could  not  help  forming  the  fancy  that  the  exiled  em- 
peror must  have  felt  a  certain  relief  in  the  freedom 
given  to  him  by  his  exile,  and  must  have  found  it  a 
gratifying  change  to  be  released  from  the  care  of  striv- 
ing to  maintain  an  exotic  empire  like  that  of  Brazil. 
The  longer  I  conversed  with  him  the  more  I  came  to 
marvel  at  the  curious  decree  of  fate  which  had  set  that 
quiet,  thoughtful,  unassertive,  and  intellectual  man  to 
the  rough,  thankless,  and  hopeless  task  of  holding  that 
position  against  such  odds  and  such  difficulties.  One 
who  succeeds  to  the  highest  position  in  a  long-established 
imperial  state  may  well  contrive,  whatever  his  own 
personal  inclinations,  to  carry  on  adequately  and  be- 
comingly the  task  which  has  been  entailed  upon  him  by 
the  successful  labors  of  his  predecessors.  But  the  whole 
creation  of  the  independent  Brazilian  empire  went  back 
only  a  few  generations,  and  might  well  have  been  con- 
sidered, even  at  its  outset,  a  work  without  any  natural 
foundation  and  hardly  within  the  reach  of  human  state- 
craft to  make  perpetual.  The  conditions  of  South 
America  are  not  suited  for  the  formation  of  empires. 

As  I  spoke  with  Dom  Pedro  my  mind  went  back  to  the 
melancholy  history  of  another  American  empire  not, 
indeed,  belonging  to  the  southern  continent,  but  set  up 
on  a  soil  alike  exotic  and  equally  unsuited  to  such  a 
growth — the  Mexican  empire,  which  may  be  described 
a?  the  last  stroke  of  the  great  political  gamester  Louis 
Napoleon,  when  he  attempted  to  open  a  new  and  daz- 
zling chapter  of  imperialism  in  order  to  recover  his. 

160 


"CROWNLESS    SOVEREIGNTIES" 

splendor  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  The  brave  and  high- 
minded  Maximilian  of  Austria,  persuaded  and  be- 
guiled by  the  imperial  gamester,  was  the  principal 
victim  of  that  ill-fated  enterprise,  and  I  could  not  help 
thinking  how  much  more  fortunate  was  Dom  Pedro  in 
having  been  able  to  survive  the  ruin  of  his  fallen  empire 
and  to  have  some  years  at  least  of  a  peaceful  and  honor- 
ed life.  Dom  Pedro,  of  course,  had  incurred  no  per- 
sonal responsibility  for  the  foundation  of  the  South 
American  empire;  the  task  had  come  down  to  him  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  succession,  and  he  did  the  best  he 
could  with  it  and  merely  failed  to  achieve,  where  it  was 
beyond  the  art  of  man  to  accomplish,  success.  When 
the  Brazilian  revolution  overthrew  the  empire  and  sent 
Dom  Pedro  into  exile,  Brazil  established  for  herself  a 
republican  system  modelled  as  nearly  as  possible  after 
the  exact  pattern  of  the  republic  created  by  the  United 
States,  with  its  President  elected  at  precise  intervals, 
its  Senate,  its  House  of  Representatives,  and  all  the 
other  arrangements.  It  has  gone  on  thus  far  without 
giving  much  trouble  to  its  neighbors  or  to  the  world  in 
general,  and  without  exciting  any  particular  interest 
in  western  or  eastern  hemisphere. 

I  remember  having  heard  Englishmen  ask,  at  the  time 
when  the  Brazilian  empire  was  overthrown  by  popular 
revolution,  why  it  was  that  the  United  States,  having 
compelled  Louis  Napoleon  to  withdraw  from  his  im- 
perial enterprise  in  Mexico,  should  never  have  inter- 
fered with  the  progress  of  the  empire  in  Brazil.  If  the 
Monroe  doctrine,  it  was  asked,  applied  to  the  empire 
started  by  Louis  Napoleon  in  Mexico,  why  did  it  not 
also  apply  to  the  empire  inherited  by  Dom  Pedro  in 
Brazil  ?  The  answer  is  very  plain.  One  of  the  condi- 
tions of  the  Monroe  doctrine  is  that  no  European 
sovereign  shall  set  up  an  empire  on  American  soil 
"  161 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

against  the  national  wish  of  the  population  to  be  im- 
perialized.  At  the  time  when  Brazil  was  converted 
into  an  empire  the  country  had  long  been  an  appanage 
of  the  Portuguese  crown,  and  when  Portuguese  princes 
took  refuge  there  from  the  invading  enterprises  of  the 
first  Napoleon  the  Brazilian  population  made  no  objec- 
tion, and  probably  felt  none,  to  the  merely  nominal 
change  which  converted  the  country  into  an  empire. 
I  am  not  able  to  form  any  estimate  as  to  the  rightf ulness 
of  the  cause  which  was  represented  by  the  Brazilian 
revolution,  but  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  people  of  Brazil 
had  by  that  time  come  to  the  conviction  that  they  could 
get  on  better  with  a  republic  than  with  an  empire,  and 
nothing  that  has  happened  since  shows  that  they  yearn 
for  a  restoration  of  the  imperial  system.  The  Monroe 
doctrine,  therefore,  was  in  nowise  affected  by  the  set- 
ting up  or  the  maintenance  of  the  empire  in  Brazil  any 
more  than  it  is  affected  now  by  the  fact  that  Canada  is 
a  dominion  of  the  British  empire.  I  need  hardly  say 
that  I  did  not  start  this  subject  in  any  of  the  conversa- 
tions which  I  had  with  the  deposed  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
and  I  only  mention  it  now  for  the  reason  that  it  formed 
one  of  the  thoughts  then  passing  through  my  mind  and 
made  me  contrast  the  happy  relief  given  by  fortune  to 
Dom  Pedro  with  the  stroke  of  fate  which  had  prema- 
turely closed  the  career  of  the  gallant  Maximilian. 

The  emperor  and  empress  were  both  fond  of  travel, 
and  had  gone  about  the  world  a  good  deal  even  while 
the  empire  of  Brazil  was  still  a  flourishing  institution. 
In  the  summer  of  1871  the  emperor  and  empress  paid 
a  visit  to  London  during  the  course  of  their  prolonged 
tour  through  Europe.  The  imperial  visitors  made  it 
their  pleasure  to  see  everything  in  London  which  helped 
to  illustrate  the  life  of  the  people,  and  to  become  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  every  spot  which  had  historic, 

162 


"OROWNLESS   SOVEREIGNTIES" 

literary,  or  artistic  interest.  They  lived  quietly  at  Cla- 
ridge's  Hotel  and  did  not  go  in  much  for  court  cere- 
monial, but  there  was  one  great  occasion  when  the  em- 
peror expressed  himself  as  gratified  beyond  measure  by 
the  action  of  the  late  Queen  Victoria,  who  conferred 
upon  him  the  Order  of  the  Garter.  Queen  Victoria 
showed  the  emperor  and  empress  great  attention  and 
kindness  while  they  were  in  England,  and  every  one 
who  was  brought  into  association  with  them  seems  to 
have  been  impressed  by  the  intelligent  interest  they 
manifested  in  the  historical  monuments  and  memorials 
of  English  life.  The  emperor  had  during  his  reign 
proved  himself  to  be  a  man  of  progressive  mind,  and 
had  done  much  to  forward  every  educational  and  philan- 
thropic movement  in  the  country  which  he  was  doing  his 
best  to  govern.  I  can  well  remember  that  a  certain  sen- 
sation was  created  when  the  emperor  and  empress  were 
in  London  by  the  fact  that  the  emperor  spent  great 
part  of  a  day  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  while  the 
hearing  of  the  famous  Tichborne  case  was  going  on. 
The  Tichborne  case  has  long  since  that  time  vanished 
almost  entirely  out  of  public  memory,  but  it  was  then 
and  for  long  after  an  absorbing  topic  of  interest.  No 
trial  which  has  gone  on  in  this  country  in  my  recollec- 
tion ever  created  anything  like  the  amount  of  curiosity, 
excitement,  controversy,  and  wonder  aroused  by  the 
audacious  claims  of  the  self-styled  Sir  Roger  Tich- 
borne. There  were  some,  I  can  well  recollect,  who 
thought  it  rather  undignified  on  the  part  of  a  crowned 
emperor  to  manifest  any  interest  in  such  a  proceeding, 
but  the  general  feeling  was  that  he  could  not  have  better 
proved  the  comprehensive  activity  of  his  intelligence 
than  by  thus  availing  himself  of  the  opportunity  for  a 
study  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  ever  tried  in 
an  English  court  of  law.  The  emperor  had  the  good 

163 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

fortune  to  come  in  for  a  brilliant  illustration  of  the 
processes  of  cross-examination  applied  to  the  Tichborne 
claimant  by  Sir  John  (afterwards  Lord)  Coleridge. 
Harun-al-Rashid  himself  might  have  thought  his  time 
well  spent  if  he  could  have  been  present  on  such  an 
occasion  as  that  secured  by  the  Emperor  of  Brazil. 

I  am  wandering  somewhat  out  of  the  range  of  the 
sixties,  to  which  these  pages  are  dedicated,  but  when  one 
studies  the  portrait  of  an  eminent  personage  he  is  not 
likely  to  keep  his  thoughts  confined  altogether  to  the 
precise  period  at  which  the  picture  was  taken.  I  may 
say  that  the  portrait  of  the  emperor  set  out  in  this 
chapter  does  not,  and  of  course  could  not,  represent  him 
as  I  saw  him  at  Cannes  nearly  twenty  years  after.  The 
emperor,  when  I  first  came  into  his  presence,  was  look- 
ing rather  older  than  even  his  years  would  have  war- 
ranted, for  his  white  hair  and  somewhat  melancholy 
gravity  of  expression  gave  one  the  idea  of  a  man  whose 
life  was  drawing  to  a  close  by  the  accumulation  of  years. 
The  emperor  was  almost  exactly  sixty-six  years  old 
when  he  died  in  Paris  not  much  more  than  a  year  after 
I  saw  him  at  Cannes.  We  do  not  in  our  days  regard 
such  a  life  as  one  that  has  reached  its  natural  length, 
but  the  Emperor  of  Brazil  had  lived  much  in  his  time, 
and  when  I  saw  him  seemed  to  be  already  standing 
within  the  shadow  of  the  approaching  end.  The  task 
which  had  devolved  upon  him  was  probably  beyond  the 
strength  of  any  statesman.  Dom  Pedro  conducted  his 
reign  on  high  and  liberal  principles  and  won  for  himself 
the  approval  of  the  world  in  general,  but  there  are  coun- 
tries in  which  an  empire  is  not  destined  to  hold  sway 
for  long,  and  the  conditions  surrounding  and  controlling 
Brazil  could  hardly  have  been  favorable  to  the  endur- 
ance of  an  imperial  system  transplanted  from  the  old 
countries  across  the  ocean. 

164 


"CROWNLESS    SOVEREIGNTIES" 

The  Emperor  of  Brazil  succeeded  to  a  crown,  but 
when  he  had  lost  it  gave  up  the  game  quietly  and  never 
made  the  slightest  attempt  to  recover  the  precarious  pos- 
session. Don  Carlos  of  Spain,  whose  portrait  also  be- 
longs to  this  chapter,  represents  the  story  of  a  struggle 
carried  on  through  generations,  of  a  claim  never  resign- 
ed or  renounced,  but  asserted  and  maintained  against 
the  most  overwhelming  difficulties,  sometimes  carried  to 
the  verge  of  success,  and  still  regarded  with  faith  and 
hope  by  its  acknowledged  representatives  and  their  de- 
voted followers.  The  living  Don  Carlos,  whose  portrait 
here  was  taken  during  the  early  sixties,  is  still  looked 
up  to  by  many  as  the  legitimate  sovereign  of  Spain, 
and  reckons  for  much  more  than  a  mere  cipher  when 
forces  have  to  be  counted  in  the  event  of  political  con- 
vulsions in  the  southwest  of  the  European  continent. 
During  the  troubles  following  the  great  war  between 
France  and  Prussia  in  1870  and  the  fall  of  the  French 
empire,  when  the  destinies  of  Spain  seemed  to  flicker 
for  a  while  between  legitimacy  and  republicanism,  Don 
Carlos  appeared  in  the  field  as  Charles  the  Seventh,  and 
maintained  himself  for  a  considerable  time  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  peninsula.  We  can  all  remember  that 
there  were  intervals  during  that  stormy  time  when  the 
chances  seemed  great  that  the  Carlist  movement  might 
hold  its  own  and  that  the  representative  of  legitimacy 
might  come  to  be  recognized  as  the  reigning  sovereign 
of  Spain.  The  movement  failed  then  as  it  had  failed 
before,  but  even  yet,  if  at  any  moment  some  political 
upheaval  should  be  threatened  in  Spain,  the  first  ques- 
tion in  the  mind  of  the  observer  is  whether  the  crisis 
may  not  after  all  be  fraught  with  the  possibility  of  a 
restoration  for  Don  Carlos.  Many  European  countries 
have  still  shadowy  claimants  to  royalty  whom  their  fol- 
lowers would  fain  regard  as  substantial  disputants  for 

105 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  crown,  but  whom  the  outer  world  looks  upon  as  mere 
spectral  curiosities.  Many  of  us  can  remember  how  the 
streets  of  West  End  London  were  often  visited  by  a 
singular  and  picturesque-looking  personage  who  was 
supposed  to  insist  upon  his  claims  as  the  last  of  the 
legitimate  Stuarts  of  the  English  succession.  But  the 
regions  of  Piccadilly  and  St.  James's  Street  and  the 
parks  did  not  concern  themselves  much  about  the  nature 
of  his  pretensions,  and  only  regarded  him  with  much 
the  same  kind  of  curiosity  as  might  have  been  given  to 
the  leading  figure  in  the  recent  Agapemone  scandal. 
We  all  know  that  there  is  to  this  day  a  certain  number 
of  educated  Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  who  do 
homage  to  a  Bavarian  princess  as  the  genuine  and 
legitimate  sovereign  of  England.  But  Don  Carlos  has 
not  even  yet  come  to  be  considered  as  a  mere  shadow 
among  the  shadows  of  a  past  legitimacy.  He  still  is  an 
actual  influence;  his  name  might  even  yet  become  a 
name  to  conjure  with  if  any  unexpected  crisis  were  to 
arise  in  the  affairs  of  Spain,  and  even  the  most  practi- 
cal politicians  cannot  fail  to  take  account  of  his  possible 
influence.  His  son  and  heir,  Don  Jaime,  now  holds 
rank  in  the  Russian  army,  and  of  him  I  have  some  dis- 
tinct and  interesting  personal  recollections.  Many 
years  ago,  when  he  was  still  only  a  boy,  I  had  the  honor 
of  spending  some  days  in  his  company  at  an  English 
country-house.  The  house  was  the  home  of  an  English 
nobleman  highly  esteemed  by  all  who  knew  him,  and 
who  might  have  taken  a  conspicuous  place  in  public 
affairs  if  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  devote  himself  to 
political  life.  Our  host  belonged  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  was  a  strong  believer  in  the  principle  of 
divine  right  and  the  cause  of  legitimate  sovereignty. 
The  guests  at  his  country-house  during  my  visit  were 
but  three  in  number.  I  think  they  made  up  a  some- 

166 


DON    CARLOS 


"CROWNLESS    SOVEREIGNTIES" 

what  peculiar  company.  Don  Jaime  was  one;  a  dis- 
tinguished Jesuit  was  another;  and  I,  who  at  that  time 
held  an  official  position  among  the  Irish  Home  Rulers 
led  by  Mr.  Parnell  in  the  House  of  Commons,  was  the 
third.  We  had  many  delightful  walks  and  drives  to- 
gether and  interesting  conversations  at  dinner  under  the 
inspiration  of  our  intellectual  and  brilliant  host,  and 
that  visit  constituted  an  event  in  my  life  the  memory  of 
which  is  not  likely  to  pass  away.  The  fact  that  Don 
Jaime  holds  a  commission  in  the  Russian  army  is  all 
the  more  remarkable  because  the  nearest  living  repre- 
sentative of  the  great  Napoleon's  family  is  also  in  the 
military  service  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia.  I  have  only 
seen  Don  Jaime  once  since  that  far-off  meeting  in  the 
English  country-house,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  if  I 
were  to  see  him  now  I  should  be  able  to  trace  much 
likeness  to  the  boy  whom  I  so  well  remember. 

The  living  Don  Carlos  has  had  an  active  time  of  it 
since  the  days  of  the  sixties.  The  struggle  which  he 
carried  on  in  Spain,  beginning  during  the  life  of  the 
short-lived  republic,  is  well  described  as  the  Four  Years' 
War,  and  only  came  to  an  end  in  1876.  Then  Don 
Carlos  set  out  on  a  course  of  travel,  passed  through 
France  to  England,  spent  some  time  in  London,  where 
his  tall  and  stately  figure  and  handsome,  dignified  face 
were  greatly  admired,  and  made  a  tour  in  the  United 
States  and  Mexico.  Having  no  taste  for  a  life  of  ease, 
he  took  service  with  the  Russian  army  in  Turkey  dur- 
ing the  war  of  1877  and  led  a  brilliant  charge  at  Plevna, 
for  which  he  was  rewarded  with  a  special  decoration  by 
the  Russian  Emperor.  Since  then  he  has  visited  India, 
and  more  lately  still  made  a  tour  through  South  Amer- 
ica. Don  Carlos  certainly  must  be  admitted  to  have 
made  the  very  most  of  his  time  and  his  opportunities 
in  the  active  work  of  life.  It  used  to  be  said  during  the 

167 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

sixties  of  the  late  Prince  Napoleon,  whose  love  of  yacht- 
ing and  travel  carried  him  through  every  accessible  part 
of  the  world,  that  if  everything  else  should  fail  him  he 
could  at  all  events  set  up  as  a  teacher  of  geography.  But 
although  I  do  not  by  any  means  believe  the  common  re- 
ports which  long  prevailed  about  Prince  Napoleon's 
want  of  courage,  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  seek  for 
and  obtain  so  many  personal  opportunities  of  studying 
the  business  of  war  as  those  which  have  come  to  the  lot 
of  Don  Carlos. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Don  Carlos  might,  if 
he  thought  fit,  claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  living  repre- 
sentative of  the  House  of  Bourbon  in  France.  Indeed, 
there  is  still  an  ever-reviving  interest  among  those  who 
study  dynastic  complications  as  to  the  possibility  of 
some  crisis  arising  in  the  affairs  of  France  which  might 
tempt  the  legitimists  to  make  a  new  effort  and  put  for- 
ward Don  Carlos  as  the  representative  of  their  claims. 
It  is  quite  certain  that  at  more  than  one  season  of  politi- 
cal commotion  in  France  some  of  the  devoted  legitimists 
made  approaches  to  Don  Carlos  with  the  hope  of  in- 
ducing him  to  put  himself  forward  as  a  claimant  for 
that  relic  of  antiquity,  the  Bourbon  crown  of  France. 
But  it  is  also  certain  that  Don  Carlos  has  never  given 
any  encouragement  to  the  proposals  for  such  an  enter- 
prise. He  has  seen  too  much  of  the  world ;  he  has  taken 
account  too  closely  of  the  modern  conditions  which  pre- 
vail over  even  legitimist  dynasties ;  he  has  still,  perhaps, 
too  keen  an  eye  to  the  changing  fortunes  of  Spain  to  be 
easily  led  away  by  the  fantasies  of  the  French  legiti- 
mists. There  does  not  seem  anything  in  the  state  of 
France  now  to  show  that  the  fortunes  of  the  French 
republic  are  likely  to  bring  about  a  crisis  which  might 
offer  a  tempting  field  for  the  intervention  even  of  the 
most  enterprising  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons.  If  Don 

168 


"CROWNLESS    SOVEREIGNTIES" 

Carlos  should  still  have  any  hopes  of  sovereignty,  we 
may  take  it  for  granted  that  these  hopes  will  be  associ- 
ated only  with  the  possibilities  of  his  own  country. 

We  are  apt  to  forget  in  the  present  day  how  deep  an 
interest  the  struggles  of  rival  dynasties  in  Spain  had 
at  a  time  not  very  long  ago  for  many  influential  Eng- 
lishmen. During  the  struggle  between  the  Carlists  and 
the  supporters  of  Queen  Isabella  in  Spain  there  were 
English  volunteers  of  position  and  mark  who  took  an 
active  part  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  sometimes  found 
themselves  confronted  on  the  battle-field.  I  have  a  very 
distinct  recollection  of  the  gallant  old  soldier  General 
Sir  De  Lacy  Evans,  who  represented  Westminster  in 
the  House  of  Commons  for  many  years,  and  made  it 
part  of  his  parliamentary  work  to  introduce  every  ses- 
sion a  motion  for  the  abolition  of  purchase  in  the  army. 
The  task  was  afterwards  undertaken  by  Sir  George  Tre- 
velyan,  and,  as  we  all  remember,  was  finally  carried  to 
success  by  Mr.  Gladstone.  Sir  De  Lacy  Evans,  an 
Irishman  by  birth,  had  in  the  early  part  of  his  military 
career  been  engaged  in  the  capture  of  Washington  dur- 
ing England's  second  war  with  the  United  States,  the 
war  arising  out  of  the  controversy  concerning  the  right 
of  search.  It  used  to  be  said  that  De  Lacy  Evans  was 
strongly  opposed  to  the  destruction  of  the  State  Library 
in  Washington,  which  aroused  so  much  hostile  criticism 
throughout  the  world.  He  took  his  share  in  the  fighting 
at  Waterloo ;  he  commanded  a  division  in  the  Crimean 
War,  and  received  the  thanks  of  Parliament  for  his 
services  at  the  Alma  and  during  the  siege  of  Sebastopol, 
but  that  part  of  his  career  with  which  I  am  at  present 
concerned  is  the  episode  created  by  his  services  as  com- 
mander of  the  Spanish  legion  voluntarily  raised  to 
maintain  the  cause  of  Queen  Isabella  against  the  Carl- 
ists during  the  Spanish  civil  wars  of  1835  and  the  fol- 

169 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

lowing  year  or  two.  The  story  went  that  during  his 
campaign  as  a  volunteer  supporter  of  Queen  Isabella 
he  had  the  singular  fortune  to  capture  a  Carlist  legion 
which  was  actually  commanded  by  a  British  peer  who 
had  volunteered  his  support  to  the  Carlist  cause.  It 
seems  not  easy  to  understand  now  how  British  soldiers 
could  have  felt  themselves  thus  drawn  into  personal 
championship  of  either  the  one  Spanish  dynasty  or  the 
other,  but  it  is  beyond  question  that  there  were  rival 
parties  created  in  England  as  well  as  in  Spain  by  the 
contending  claimants  for  the  Spanish  crown,  although 
England  did  not  in  our  days,  as  in  the  days  of  William 
the  Third  and  Queen  Anne,  engage  her  whole  military 
resources  in  a  war  about  the  Spanish  succession. 


CHAPTER  XHI 

SIB  RICHARD  AND  LADY  BURTON 

RICHARD  BURTON  was  one  of  the  celebrities  of  the 
early  sixties.  Indeed,  he  was  surrounded  by  the  glamour 
of  an  almost  mythical  fame  as  well  as  by  the  strong 
light  of  that  fame  which  he  had  fairly  kindled  for  him- 
self. He  had  "  lived  a  life  of  sturt  and  strife,"  to  quote 
the  words  of  the  famous  old  Scottish  ballad ;  he  had  been 
soldier,  traveller,  explorer,  had  passed  from  danger  to 
danger,  from  new  exploit  to  newer  exploit,  and  had  ob- 
served and  turned  to  account  everything  he  saw.  But 
even  the  wonderful  feats  he  had  accomplished  were  not 
enough  to  satisfy  his  admirers,  and  he  was  credited  with 
many  adventures  which  had  never  belonged  to  his 
career,  and  had  never  been  recorded,  described,  or  ac- 
knowledged by  him.  He  told  me  himself  that  certain 
episodes  had  been  thus  introduced  into  his  personal  his- 
tory and  continued  to  be  narrated  as  part  of  its  wonders, 
although  he  had  not  only  never  authorized  the  stories, 
but  had  even  denied  them  publicly  over  and  over  again 
without  being  able  to  get  rid  of  them.  He  had  served 
under  Sir  Charles  Napier  in  Scinde,  had  accomplished 
his  famous  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  had  taken  part  in  the 
Crimean  campaign,  and  gone  with  Speke  on  the  quest 
for  the  sources  of  the  Nile  before  I  came  to  know  him. 
He  had  acquired  a  full  knowledge  of  Hindustani,  Per- 
sian, and  Arabic.  The  leading  passion  of  his  life  was 
his  love  for  the  East.  He  studied  many  other  lan- 

171 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

guages,  as  well  as  those  of  Asia,  and  was  a  master  of 
many  literatures. 

I  first  made  Burton's  acquaintance  during  one  of  his 
occasional  visits  to  London,  where  I  had  then  settled 
down  to  a  life  of  literature  and  journalism.  I  can  well 
remember  my  first  meeting  with  him.  There  was  a  sort 
of  club  made  up  of  rising  authors  and  journalists  which 
used  to  hold  its  meetings  at  a  small  hotel  in  the  Fleet 
Street  region.  It  was  like  one  of  the  clubs  belonging  to 
the  classic  days  of  Addison  and  Steele  in  the  fact  that 
it  did  not  aspire  to  have  any  premises  of  its  own  and 
was  content  to  have  the  shelter  of  a  room  in  an  ordinary 
hostelry  on  the  evenings  set  out  for  its  gatherings. 

Among  the  men  whom  I  remember  in  association 
with  that  club,  and  whose  names  still  live  in  public 
recollection,  were  George  Augustus  Sala  and  William 
Black ;  and  these  two  were  of  the  company  on  the  night 
when  I  first  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Richard 
Burton.  I  met  him  several  times  during  that  visit  of 
his  to  London;  then  an  interval  of  several  years  took 
place,  during  which  I  saw  nothing  of  him,  and  then  in 
days  which  do  not  belong  to  the  sixties  I  renewed  my 
acquaintance  with  him  and  maintained  it  until  his 
death.  During  the  first  period  of  our  acquaintance,  the 
period  to  which  the  portraits  from  the  sixties  belong,  I 
knew  in  him  a  man  very  different  from  the  Richard 
Burton  I  came  to  know  in  his  later  life.  The  Richard 
Burton  whom  I  first  met  was  exactly  the  type  of  man 
one  might  have  expected  to  meet  if  one  had  read  all  the 
wonderful  stories  told,  and  truly  told,  of  his  travels  and 
his  adventures.  If  you  had  set  to  work  to  construct  out 
of  your  moral  consciousness  a  living  picture  of  the  hero 
of  these  experiences  and  exploits,  you  would  probably 
have  created  an  eidolon  of  the  Richard  Burton  I  came 
to  know  at  the  club  in  the  Fleet  Street  region.  Burton 

172 


SIR   RICHARD    AND    LADY    BURTON 

then  seemed  full  of  irrepressible  energy  and  the  power 
of  domination.  He  was  quick  in  his  movements,  rapid 
in  his  talk,  never  wanted  for  a  word  or  an  argument, 
was  impatient  of  differing  opinion,  and  seemingly  could 
not  help  making  himself  the  dictator  of  any  assembly 
in  which  he  found  himself  a  centre  figure.  His  powers 
of  description  were  marvellous;  he  could  dash  off 
picturesque  phrases  as  easily  as  another  man  could  utter 
commonplaces;  could  tell  any  number  of  good  stories 
without  ever  seeming  to  repeat  himself;  could  recite  a 
poem  or  rattle  off  a  song,  could  flash  out  jest  after  jest, 
sometimes  with  bewildering  meanings;  he  was  always 
perfectly  good-humored,  and  he  was  always  indomitably 
dogmatic.  If  he  thought  you  really  worth  arguing  with 
on  any  question  which  especially  concerned  him,  he 
would  apply  himself  to  the  argument  with  as  much 
earnestness  as  if  some  great  issue  depended  on  it,  and 
with  an  air  of  sublime  superiority  which  seemed  to 
imply  that  he  was  keeping  up  the  discussion,  not  be- 
cause there  could  be  any  doubt  as  to  the  right  side,  but 
merely  out  of  a  kindly  resolve  to  enlighten  your  igno- 
rance whether  you  would  or  not.  It  was  impossible  not 
to  be  impressed  by  him,  impossible  not  to  admire  him 
even  if  one  had  known  nothing  of  his  career  and  his 
fame — supposing  such  ignorance  possible  in  a  London 
literary  club  during  the  sixties.  But  it  was  impossible, 
also,  not  to  be  somewhat  abashed  by  the  supremacy  of 
his  domineering  power,  and  I  know  that  I  should  not 
have  ventured  to  dispute  with  him  even  if  he  had  assert- 
ed that  in  certain  parts  of  Arabia  three  angles  of  a 
triangle  were  equal  to  five  right  angles.  I  was  so  deeply 
interested  in  all  that  he  said  and  so  delighted  and  daz- 
zled by  the  flashlights  which  he  shed  upon  us  that  I 
should  not  have  had  the  inclination,  even  if  I  had  the 
courage,  to  gainsay  anything  uttered  by  him,  and  was 

173 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

only  too  happy  to  acquire  all  the  knowledge  I  could, 
and  listen  to  all  the  stories  he  was  willing  to  tell. 

Then  I  lost  sight  of  Burton  altogether  for  many 
years,  and  time  went  on  and  soon  left  the  sixties  behind. 
Meanwhile  the  world  was  always  hearing  something 
about  Burton  and  his  travels  and  his  doings.  He  had 
written  and  published  many  books  and  some  transla- 
tions, and  had  occupied  himself  much  in  the  elaborate 
preparation  of  his  own  annotated  version  of  the  Arabian 
Nights.  I  renewed  my  acquaintance  with  him  during 
the  later  years  of  his  life,  and  met  him  often  at  the 
houses  of  friends  in  London.  At  that  time  I  first  had 
the  good  fortune  to  meet  Lady  Burton,  the  gifted, 
charming,  and  devoted  wife  whose  influence  had  such  a 
refining  and  ennobling  effect  on  Burton's  temper  and 
manners.  I  have  never  observed  a  more  remarkable 
change  in  the  personality  of  any  man  than  that  which  I 
saw  in  the  manners  and,  so  far  as  I  could  judge,  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  Richard  Burton  whom  I  knew  in  the 
sixties.  The  genius,  the  intellectual  power,  the  unfail- 
ing variety  of  thought  and  expression,  the  quest  for  new 
ideas  and  new  experiences — these  were  always  the  same. 
But  the  Burton  of  later  days  had  grown  kindly,  con- 
siderate, patient  of  other  men's  opinions,  ready  to  put 
the  best  construction  on  other  men's  motives,  unwilling 
to  wound,  though  certainly  not  afraid  to  strike,  in  de- 
fence of  any  cause  that  called  for  his  help.  I  could 
not  but  ascribe  this  remarkable  change  in  Burton's  bear- 
ing to  the  sweet  and  gentle  influence  of  that  woman 
whose  very  eyes  told  the  love  and  devotion  which  she 
felt  for  him,  and  the  tenderness  with  which  she  applied 
herself  to  bring  out  all  that  was  best  in  him.  The  favor- 
ing fates  were  never  more  kind  to  Burton  than  when 
they  allowed  that  devoted  woman  to  watch  by  him  to  the 
last.  I  have  many  bright  recollections  of  the  Burtons 

174 


SIR   RICHARD    AND    LADY    BURTON 

and  their  friendliness  to  me  and  mine.  My  son  had  a 
great  love  for  the  study  of  Oriental  history,  literature, 
and  languages,  and  Sir  Richard  Burton  lent  him  help, 
as  kindly  as  it  was  precious,  in  all  his  efforts  to  gain 
something  from  the  inexhaustible  treasure-houses  of 
Oriental  letters.  My  son  afterwards  worked  with  Lady 
Burton  in  the  preparation  of  a  condensed  edition  of 
Burton's  Arabian  Nights,  an  edition  adapted  for  the 
study  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  younger  generation. 

I  cannot  refrain  from  introducing  here  some  mention 
of  a  curious  incident  which  recalls  with  melancholy  sur- 
roundings the  memory  of  Lady  Burton.  My  son  and 
daughter  and  I  were  walking  one  day  on  the  King's 
Road  in  Brighton  when  the  figure  of  a  lady  passed 
silently  by  us.  I  did  not  see  her  face,  and  she  passed 
very  quickly,  but  my  daughter  suddenly  stopped  and 
surprised  us  with  the  news  that  Lady  Burton  had  just 
gone  by.  Then  she  reminded  herself  and  us  that  it 
could  not  be  Lady  Burton,  for  if  she  were  at  Brighton 
just  then  we  must  have  known  it  from  some  friends  of 
ours  who  were  also  intimate  friends  of  the  Burtons,  and 
whom  we  had  seen  that  very  day.  If  Lady  Burton  were 
in  Brighton,  those  friends  would  never  have  failed  to 
tell  us  of  the  fact.  These  reasons  prevented  us  from 
following  the  lady,  who  soon  passed  out  of  sight.  My 
daughter  declared  that  the  woman  who  had  passed  us 
was  so  strikingly  like  Lady  Burton  that  anybody  might 
have  been  deceived  by  the  resemblance.  On  our  way 
home  we  bought  an  evening  paper,  and  the  first  thing 
we  saw  on  opening  it  was  the  sad  news  of  Lady  Burton's 
death.  I  do  not  want  to  attach  to  the  story  any  of  the 
peculiar  significance  which  might  have  made  it  of 
special  interest  to  the  members  of  the  society  engaged  in 
psychical  research.  I  do  not  regard  it  as  an  illumina- 
tion from  the  spiritual  world.  It  was  a  strange  coinci- 

175 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

dence,  and  nothing  more  but  the  coincidence  was  strange 
indeed,  and  as  such  is  worth  a  record  in  these  pages. 
We  had  not  at  the  time  heard  anything  of  Lady  Bur- 
ton's illness,  and  our  only  feeling  of  wonder  was  that 
she  should  have  been  in  Brighton  just  then  without 
our  having  heard  of  it,  and  that  she  should  have  passed 
us  without  any  sign  of  recognition.  The  reader  will 
well  understand  our  feelings  when  we  opened  the  paper 
which  told  the  story  of  her  death. 

I  have  not  known  in  my  experience  any  other  illus- 
tration so  impressive  of  the  influence  which  a  noble- 
hearted  woman  may  exercise  over  a  man  of  original 
and  powerful  mind  as  that  which  the  love  of  Lady  Bur- 
ton wrought  upon  the  life  of  her  husband.  Any  one 
must  have  seen  from  the  first  that  Burton  had  a  true 
heart  and  a  noble  nature,  but  his  was  especially  an  im- 
pulsive spirit,  and  during  his  unmarried  years  he  fol- 
lowed the  sudden  dictates  of  his  impulses  whither  they 
led  him.  Nothing  was  ever  said  against  him  which, 
even  if  it  were  true,  would  have  accused  him  of  more 
than  a  certain  reckless  and  eccentric  energy,  apt  to  lead 
him  into  all  manner  of  wild  enterprises  from  the  sheer 
love  of  adventure.  But  it  was  clear  enough  that  his 
overmastering  love  for  movement  and  action,  his  tem- 
perament of  self-assertion  and  antagonism,  had  made 
him  responsible  for  some  undertakings  and  many  utter- 
ances which  were  not  worthy  of  his  genius  and  his  bet- 
ter nature.  He  loved  to  assail  the  fond  beliefs  of  other 
people  and  found  a  wild  pleasure  in  the  breaking  of 
their  idols  and  the  disturbing  of  their  beliefs.  He  loved 
to  startle  the  timid  and  shock  the  precise.  In  the  days 
when  I  first  knew  him  I  thought  him  possessed  by  the 
very  genius  of  contradiction  as  well  as  by  the  genius  of 
adventure,  and  those  who  admired  him  most  must  often 
have  felt  that  he  was  throwing  away  his  best  faculties 

176 


SIR    RICHARD    AND    LADY   BURTON 

in  the  excitement  of  creating  a  sensation.  Under  the 
influence  of  Lady  Burton  the  most  complete  change 
took  place  in  these  peculiarities  of  his,  and  he  seemed  to 
be  inspired  only  by  the  desire  to  seek  after  the  truth 
and  the  right  in  the  work  of  life  as  well  as  in  mere  in- 
tellectual speculation.  He  was  a  stronger  man  in  those 
quiet  days  when  I  knew  him  as  the  husband  of  Lady 
Burton,  and  his  intellect  appeared  to  do  itself  more 
justice  than  in  the  former  time  when  he  was  still  living 
for  himself  and  his  impulses  alone. 

Every  one  must  have  noticed  now  and  then  how  by 
some  strange  process  of  mental  grouping  we  come  to 
associate  in  our  minds  two  totally  different  personali- 
ties, unlike  in  nature  and  in  no  wise  connected  by  fate, 
so  that  we  can  hardly  think  of  the  one  without  thinking 
of  the  other.  In  this  way  I  find  myself  constantly  asso- 
ciating the  Richard  Burton  of  my  later  meetings  with 
a  man  of  very  different  characteristics  and  a  very  dif- 
ferent career,  a  man  who  was  once  famous,  but  whom 
the  present  generation  has,  I  fear,  wellnigh  forgotten. 
The  man  I  have  in  my  mind  is  Richard  Henry  Home, 
the  author  of  the  epic  poem  "  Orion,"  which  in  the 
days  of  my  early  boyhood  set  the  whole  literary  world 
aflame  with  controversy.  One  obvious  explanation  of 
my  associating  Richard  Burton  with  "  Orion  "  Home 
might  be  found  in  the  fact  that  during  the  later  period 
of  my  acquaintance  with  Burton  I  had  also  frequent 
opportunities  of  meeting  Home.  I  met  them  both  some- 
times at  the  same  house,  the  house  of  my  dear  old  friend 
Dr.  George  Bird,  of  Welbeck  Street,  who  died  some 
years  ago.  But  I  met  a  great  many  other  distinguished 
and  some  famous  men  at  Dr.  Bird's  house  and  at  other 
houses  about  the  same  time,  and  there  is  no  one  of  these 
whom  I  feel  compelled  by  some  instinctive  force  to 
associate  with  Richard  Burton.  I  never  happened  to 
w  177 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

hear  Burton  and  Home  engaged  in  any  manner  of 
speculative  or  other  controversy.  Home,  to  be  sure, 
was  a  sort  of  adventurer  in  his  own  way  as  well  as  a 
poet,  for  in  his  early  days  he  had  taken  service  in  the 
Mexican  navy  and  had  his  share  in  many  sea-fights,  and 
in  later  years,  not  very  long  before  I  knew  him,  he  had 
diversified  his  occupations  as  a  poet  and  dramatist  by 
going  out  to  Australia  to  dig  for  gold.  But  in  my  mind, 
as  in  that  of  the  ordinary  world,  the  name  of  Home  was 
associated  only  with  that  epic  poem  of  "  Orion  "  which 
he  published  defiantly  at  the  price  of  one  farthing  a 
copy  in  order  thus  to  show  his  conviction  that  the  Brit- 
ish public  would  not  rise  to  the  payment  of  any  decent 
price  for  poetry.  That  the  light  of  genius  was  in  the 
poem  I  feel  well  convinced,  but  that  conviction  does  not 
do  much  to  explain  why  I  so  often  associate  its  author 
with  another  man  of  genius  belonging  to  a  different 
order.  Home  did  not  show  himself  to  my  observation 
in  any  manner  of  contrast  with  Richard  Burton,  for  his 
manner  was  as  quiet,  modest,  and  unasserting  as  that  of 
Richard  Burton  himself  in  the  days  when  I  saw  the 
two  men  together.  If  I  have  to  all  appearance  gone  out 
of  my  way  in  bringing  the  author  of  "  Orion  "  into  a 
chapter  which  professes  to  deal  only  with  Sir  Richard 
and  Lady  Burton,  I  can  but  plead  in  my  excuse  that  the 
association  once  more  came  into  my  mind  and  that  I 
followed  it. 


CHAPTEK   XIV 

TWO    PHILANTHROPISTS 

LOED  SHAFTESBTJBY  during  the  sixties  held  a  peculiar 
and  distinct  position.  He  was  at  once  a  memory  of  the 
past  and  a  fresh,  living  influence.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  representatives  of  a  school  of  practical 
and  domestic  philanthropy  England  has  ever  had.  He 
had  a  heart  and  an  enterprise  for  all  questions  of 
philanthropy,  and  had  been,  from  his  earliest  days  of 
public  life,  an  active  opponent  of  the  slavery  system 
in  whatever  region  of  the  earth  it  was  to  be  found. 
But  it  may  be  remembered  that  at  one  time  a  certain 
school  of  satirists  had  no  easier  or  readier  theme  than 
the  contrast  between  the  zeal  of  the  professed  philan- 
thropist for  the  emancipation  of  the  remote  negro  and 
his  total  indifference  to  the  utter  servitude  of  some 
honest  poor  Briton  at  home.  Lord  Shaftesbury,or  Lord 
Ashley,  as  he  was  during  the  earlier  part  of  his  public 
career,  did  not  give  the  slightest  excuse  for  any  such 
display  of  satirical  humor.  He  was  sincerely  concerned 
for  the  welfare  of  the  negro,  but  he  showed  a  yet  more 
active  interest  in  the  condition  of  the  British  chimney- 
sweep. He  was  devoted  to  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  foreign  parts,  but  he  made  it  at  one  time  the  main 
business  of  his  life  to  obtain  some  opportunity  of  mental 
and  moral  education  for  the  women  and  children  em- 
ployed in  English  factories.  From  the  very  beginning 
of  his  public  career — and  he  entered  the  House  of  Com- 

179 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

mons  in  1826 — down  to  the  close  of  his  long  and  hon- 
ored life  in  1885,  he  labored  untiringly  for  the  benefit 
of  every  movement  which  had  for  its  object  the  improve- 
ment of  the  condition  of  the  working  classes. 

I  never  saw  Lord  Shaftesbury  while  he  was  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  only  came  into  any  man- 
ner of  personal  acquaintance  with  him  during  those 
sixties  to  which  the  portrait  in  this  volume  belongs. 
I  first  met  him  in  1864,  and  on  a  remarkable  occasion, 
to  which  I  have  already  made  reference  in  this  volume. 
It  was  during  the  visit  of  Garibaldi  to  England,  when 
the  famous  Italian  spent  some  days  in  the  Isle  of  Wight 
as  the  guest  of  Mr.  Seeley,  then  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  one  of  the  many 
guests  invited  to  meet  Garibaldi.  I  had  the  honor  to 
be  one  of  the  number,  not  because  I  was  supposed  to 
have  any  political  association  with  the  former  Dictator 
of  Sicily,  but  because  I  was  a  writer  for  a  radical 
newspaper,  and  I  was  glad  to  have  the  opportunity 
of  becoming  personally  acquainted  with  a  man  about 
whom  the  whole  world  was  talking  at  that  time. 

Lord  Shaftesbury's  manners  were  always  serious  and 
even  grave,  but  there  was  much  geniality  and  sweetness 
in  them,  and  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  impressed  by 
the  modesty  and  unvarying  courtesy  of  his  demeanor. 
I  had  heard  him  speak  in  the  House  of  Lords  and  on 
public  platforms  before  that  time,  and  had  formed 
the  opinion  of  his  capacity  and  his  unselfish  public 
purposes  which  I  have  retained  ever  since.  He  was 
narrow-minded  in  a  certain  sense;  that  is  to  say,  he 
held  to  his  own  objects  and  his  own  ideas,  and  was 
not  easily  to  be  drawn  into  sympathy  with  purposes 
not  coming  directly  within  his  sphere.  It  used  to  be 
said  by  light-minded  critics  that  he  never  made  a  joke 
or  saw  the  point  of  one,  and  comical  stories  used  to  be 

180 


TWO    PHILANTHROPISTS 

told  about  his  frequent  misinterpretation  of  the  jocu- 
larities of  Lord  Palmerston,  with  whom  he  had  a  family 
connection  by  marriage.  My  acquaintance  with  Lord 
Shaftesbury  was  not  close  enough  to  enable  me  to  form 
an  accurate  judgment  as  to  his  capacity  for  making  or 
understanding  a  joke,  but  I  can  certainly  say  that 
neither  in  public  nor  in  private  did  I  ever  hear  him 
indulge  at  any  attempt  at  pleasantry.  I  have  never  met 
a  man  in  any  station  of  life  who  was  more  thoroughly 
courteous  in  his  manner  or  who  seemed  to  recognize 
more  fully  in  ordinary  intercourse  that  equality  of  hu- 
man beings  which  Rousseau  would  have  made  part  of 
the  social  code.  He  had  his  political  principles  and 
he  held  to  them,  but  he  could  never  be  counted  on  as 
an  absolute  partisan  when  any  question  arose  which 
was  not  to  be  settled  by  the  recognized  articles  of  the 
party  creed.  He  would  not  support  some  particular 
measure  merely  because  it  was  brought  in  by  the  govern- 
ment of  which  he  was  a  regular  adherent.  He  must 
see  for  himself  whether  the  measure  was  one  deserving 
his  support  on  its  own  merits,  and  only  when  he  had 
satisfied  himself  on  that  point  could  he  be  induced  to 
give  it  his  countenance  and  his  vote. 

In  one  sense  Lord  Shaftesbury  must  be  regarded  as  a 
very  advanced  reformer.  There  was  a  time  in  English 
public  life  when  the  more  progressive  section  of  Lib- 
erals who  were  also  philanthropists  and  humanitarians 
differed  widely  from  him  as  to  the  best  manner  of  pro- 
moting the  interests  of  the  working  classes  and  the  poor 
generally.  Men  like  Cobden  and  Bright,  thoroughly 
devoted  to  the  welfare  of  these  lowlier  classes  and  to 
every  humane  cause,  were  yet  strongly  opposed  to  some 
of  Lord  Shaftesbury's  theories  for  the  improvement  of 
their  condition.  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  an  advocate  for 
the  intervention  of  the  state  in  every  possible  way  by 

181 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

which  the  burdens  of  the  poor  and  the  heavily  laden 
could  be  lightened.  The  leaders  of  the  Manchester 
School,  as  it  used  to  be  called,  were  opposed  to  state 
intervention  where  it  could  possibly  be  avoided,  and 
were  accustomed  to  maintain  that  the  interference  of 
the  state,  even  when  inspired  by  the  most  benevolent 
intentions,  would  be  likely  to  do  much  more  harm  than 
good.  The  general  belief  of  the  Manchester  School 
was  that  through  freedom  of  action,  so  far  as  industrial 
problems  were  concerned,  men  were  most  likely  to 
achieve  in  the  end  their  own  social  improvement  and 
their  own  happiness.  That  principle  of  freedom  which 
the  Manchester  School  applied  to  trade  its  disciples 
were  inclined  to  apply  also  to  the  whole  social  organiza- 
tion. I  think  it  must  be  admitted  now  that  the  prin- 
ciples of  Lord  Shaftesbury  have,  on  the  whole,  justified 
themselves  more  fully  by  the  teaching  of  experience 
than  those  advocated  by  the  equally  sincere  and  dis- 
interested men  who  dreaded  the  effects  of  state  inter- 
vention. 

In  our  days  we  seem  to  have  almost  forgotten  the 
theory  at  one  time  so  earnestly  set  up  that  great  social 
reforms  can  be  best  accomplished  without  the  direct 
intervention  of  the  state.  Lord  Shaftesbury  gave  up 
the  whole  of  his  career  as  a  social  and  industrial  re- 
former to  the  advocacy  and  enforcement  of  the  prin- 
ciple which  we  may  now  regard  as  thoroughly  estab- 
lished and  recognized.  He  and  his  leading  opponents 
had  exactly  the  same  objects  in  view,  but  he  believed 
that  many  of  these  objects  could  be  only  attained,  or 
could  best  be  attained,  through  the  intervention  of  the 
state  and  the  application  of  state  machinery,  while  his 
opponents  were  at  that  time  convinced  that  the  true 
and  final  remedy  for  industrial  and  social  disorders 
and  failures  was  to  be  found  in  the  development  of 

182 


TWO    PHILANTHROPISTS 

private  organization  and  private  competition.  Many 
of  the  disputed  questions  have  long  been  settled,  so 
far  as  we  can  now  see,  on  the  lines  laid  down  by  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  and  I  do  not  suppose  there  is  now  any 
British  theorist  who  believes  in  the  possibility  of 
securing  proper  protection  for  working-men,  and  more 
especially  for  working  women  and  children,  without 
intervention  and  regulation  by  the  state.  I  know  well 
that  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  not  intellectually  the  equal 
of  some  great  Englishmen  who  differed  from  him  on 
this  subject,  but  he  made  out  a  complete  case  for  his 
own  policy,  he  carried  the  public  completely  with  him, 
and  there  is  as  yet  no  evidence  of  any  reaction  against 
the  principles  he  helped  so  effectively  to  establish  in 
our  social  system. 

Lord  Shaftesbury's  style  as  a  public  speaker  was 
well  suited  to  the  objects  he  had  in  view.  He  had 
none  of  the  orator's  gifts  or  graces;  he  did  not  seem 
to  have  a  gleam  of  poetic  imagination;  and  he  had  no 
sense  of  humor.  Fortunately  for  himself  and  his  cause, 
the  subjects  he  had  to  deal  with  did  not  call  for  much 
appeal  to  the  imaginative  faculties,  and  could  be  brought 
home  to  the  ordinary  mind  without  the  special  illumi- 
nation of  eloquence.  His  style  was  clear,  his  voice  was 
strong,  he  used  no  superfluous  words,  when  he  was 
speaking  on  one  of  his  own  special  subjects  he  knew 
precisely  what  he  wanted  to  say,  he  never  wandered 
from  his  direct  line  of  argument,  and  he  could  hold  the 
attention  of  his  audience  to  the  last.  His  tall  form 
and  expressive  face  were  familiar  to  the  public  of  Lon- 
don, at  least  to  that  part  of  the  public  which  attended 
great  meetings  on  philanthropic  or  religious  questions, 
and  he  was  as  ready  to  take  part  in  the  business  of 
an  assembly  in  one  of  the  poorest  and  lowest  quarters 
of  London  as  in  Exeter  Hall  or  St.  James's  Hall,  or 

183 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

any  other  of  the  great  centres  of  English  public  life. 
Indeed,  I  am  ready  to  believe  that  Lord  Shaftesbury 
found  a  greater  pleasure  in  giving  his  services  to  one 
of  the  lowlier  parts  of  the  metropolis,  where  the  whole 
success  of  the  meeting  might  depend  upon  his  personal 
presence,  than  in  standing  on  the  platform  of  some  great 
hall  which  was  recognized  as  the  natural  home  of  every 
commanding  demonstration. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  was  by  temperament  and  thought 
an  advanced  reformer  in  all  fields  of  public  life  where 
reform  was  needed  in  the  existing  systems.  He  had  sup- 
ported Peel  in  his  measure  for  the  introduction  of  free- 
trade,  and  had  lent  his  best  help  to  many  another  work 
in  the  cause  of  political,  industrial,  and  social  progress. 
But  he  sometimes  concerned  himself  with  side  issues, 
with  some  incidental  controversy  arising  indirectly  out 
of  a  great  public  event,  and  then  he  was  apt  to  get 
astray  in  his  arguments  and  to  make  it  evident  that  he 
was  not  quite  at  home  in  these  by-ways  or  unexpected 
emergencies  of  living  history.  The  truth  is  that  he  was 
not  a  politician  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  but 
was,  above  all  things  else,  a  devoted  humanitarian. 
With  the  ordinary  contests  and  controversies  of  parlia- 
mentary and  political  life  he  was  really  as  little  at  home 
as  a  preacher  or  a  professional  exponent  of  science 
might  have  been.  This  was,  according  to  my  judgment, 
only  another  illustration  of  the  noblest  part  of  his 
character.  It  merely  proved  that  he  had  his  own  work 
to  do,  which  he  thoroughly  understood  and  to  which  he 
was  absolutely  devoted,  and  that  if  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  drawn  suddenly  into  any  other  kind  of  work  he 
was  almost  certain  to  find  himself  out  of  his  element 
and  to  make  the  fact  plain.  No  doubt  it  would  have 
been  better  still  if  he  had  never  allowed  himself  to  be 
tempted  thus  out  of  his  own  self-chosen  course,  but  I 

184 


TWO    PHILANTHROPISTS 

could  not  help  thinking  that  the  occasional  mistakes  he 
made — and  they  were  not  many — were  of  interest  and 
of  value  to  impartial  observers  of  his  career  because 
they  showed  how  entirely  he  had  absorbed  his  intellect 
and  his  energies  in  that  wide-spreading,  homogeneous 
order  of  philanthropic  work  with  which  his  name  must 
ever  be  associated.  His  fame  is  to  be  found  in  his  well- 
earned  title  to  have  his  name  written,  like  the  hero  of 
Leigh  Hunt's  poem,  as  that  of  "  one  who  loved  his  fel- 
low-men." 

I  have  heard  and  read  many  anecdotes  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury's  ready  and  unvarying  kindness  and  cour- 
tesy of  manner.  I  remember  one  little  incident  within 
my  own  personal  experience  which  has  never  been  pub- 
lished before,  and  is  so  characteristic  of  the  man  as  to 
deserve  a  place  in  this  tribute  to  his  memory.  Only  a 
year  or  two  before  Lord  Shaftesbury's  death  I  was 
walking  with  a  relative — a  little  girl — in  Bond  Street 
one  day.  She  was  holding  in  her  hand  a  letter  from  a 
young  school  friend  of  hers  and  was  reading  it  as  she 
went  along.  Some  acquaintance  met  me  and  I  stopped 
to  exchange  a  few  words  with  him,  while  she  walked 
slowly  on,  still  reading  her  letter  as  she  made  her  way 
through  the  crowded  street.  Suddenly  a  gust  of  wind 
blew  the  letter  out  of  her  hand  and  tossed  it  into  the 
road.  The  child  was  about  to  rush  after  it,  heedless  of 
passing  carriages  and  cabs,  when  a  gentleman  with  tall, 
commanding  figure  and  gray  hair  stopped  her  in  her 
rash  course,  went  himself  into  the  middle  of  the  road, 
captured  the  flying  letter,  and  brought  it  back  to  her 
with  a  sweet  smile  and  a  gracious  bow.  I  came  up  at 
the  moment,  recognized  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  offered 
my  tribute  of  thanks  to  him ;  we  exchanged  some  words 
of  greeting,  and  my  niece  received  his  kindly  notice. 
She  has  ever  since  felt  pardonably  proud  of  this  volun- 

185 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

tary  service  rendered  to  her  with  such  characteristic 
kindness  by  the  great  philanthropic  peer. 

The  name  of  George  Peabody,  whose  portrait  appears 
in  this  chapter,  is  fairly  entitled  to  be  associated  with 
that  of  Lord  Shaftesbury.  It  may  perhaps  be  necessary 
to  tell  some  of  my  readers  that  George  Peabody  was  an 
American  by  birth  and  bringing-up,  who  made  a  fortune 
after  years  of  hard  and  varied  struggle  and  then  came 
to  settle  in  London.  He  devoted  himself  to  a  life  of 
good  works,  and  especially  to  improving  the  condition 
of  the  working-classes,  and  providing  them  with  habita- 
tions where  the  decencies  as  well  as  some  of  the  com- 
forts of  life  could  be  maintained  and  the  hideous  moral 
and  physical  evils  of  squalor  and  overcrowding  could  be 
mitigated.  It  did  not  enter  into  Peabody's  hopes  that 
any  complete  reformation  in  the  system  of  overcrowding 
could  be  accomplished  by  the  efforts  of  an  individual, 
however  humane,  generous,  and  rich,  or  even  by  the 
efforts  of  one  generation.  His  object  was  to  set  up  a 
substantial  and,  if  I  may  thus  put  it,  a  monumental  ex- 
ample for  the  work  of  other  philanthropists,  other  mill- 
ionaires, and  coming  generations. 

In  the  early  sixties  Peabody  began  his  operations  for 
improving  the  condition  of  the  London  poor  and  especi- 
ally the  hard-working  population.  For  this  purpose  he 
contributed  altogether  about  half  a  million  sterling.  The 
millionaires  of  that  time  had  not  yet  reached  to  any- 
thing like  the  mass  of  wealth  owned  by  their  successors 
of  the  present  day,  and  Mr.  Peabody's  contributions 
were  regarded  as  gifts  of  unexampled  munificence.  The 
principal  purpose  Peabody  had  in  view  was  to  provide 
better  dwellings  for  the  working  classes  and  the  poor 
generally,  and  the  first  block  of  these  buildings,  known 
then  and  now  as  the  "  Peabody  Dwellings,"  was  opened 
in  Spitalfields  in  February,  1864.  Other  blocks  of 

186 


TWO   PHILANTHROPISTS 

"  Peabody  Dwellings  "  were  built  and  opened  soon  after 
in  Bermondsey,  Islington,  Chelsea,  and  other  populous 
regions  of  London.  In  these  great  structures,  which 
were  all  properly  ventilated  and  made  in  every  way 
suitable  for  human  habitation,  sets  of  rooms  were  al- 
lotted at  very  moderate  prices  to  poor  families  who 
could  bring  recommendations  as  to  their  good  character, 
and  every  set  of  rooms  was  a  complete  home  in  itself. 
I  cannot  compel  myself  to  say  that  these  huge,  barrack- 
like  erections  were  positively  ornamental  to  the  quarters 
of  the  metropolis  in  which  they  were  set  up,  but  Mr. 
Peabody  did  not  claim  to  be  the  pioneer  of  a  new  artis- 
tic or  aesthetic  movement,  and  I  do  not  know  that  the 
"  Peabody  Dwellings  "  were  in  any  way  less  attractive 
to  the  eyes  of  the  artist  than  most  of  the  vast  and  mag- 
nificent piles  of  building  erected  in  New  York  City 
for  the  accommodation  of  the  rich.  Many  objections, 
reasonable  enough  in  themselves,  were  made  to  the 
whole  principle  of  the  "  Peabody  Dwellings  "  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  not  desirable  to  have  a  great  mass  of 
human  beings  pent  up  within  the  four  walls  of  one  im- 
mense structure,  no  matter  how  carefully  and  with  what 
regard  to  sanitation  the  interior  of  the  structure  may 
be  divided  into  separate  homes.  Some,  it  was  urged,  of 
the  evils,  moral  and  physical,  of  overcrowding  must 
be  brought  about  by  the  mere  fact  that  so  many  hu- 
man creatures  are  thus  domiciled  within  one  vast  bar- 
rack. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  thia 
point  of  view,  and  no  one  will  deny  that  it  would  be 
much  better  and  happier  for  the  working-classes  if  each 
family  could  have  a  separate  cottage  surrounded  by  a 
neat  garden  in  a  healthy  suburb  outside  the  range  of 
London  smoke  and  fog.  But  at  that  time  no  practical 
efforts  had  been  made  to  provide  ready  means  of  access 

187 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

to  and  from  the  country,  for  working-men  who  had  to 
perform  their  daily  toil  in  London.  The  system  of 
working-men's  trains  had  not  yet  come  into  operation. 
Mr.  Balfour  expressed  a  hope  not  long  since  that  the 
motor  might  soon  be  the  common  means  of  conveying 
the  London  working-man  to  and  from  his  home  in  the 
rural  suburbs,  and  would  thus  settle  one  great  question 
about  the  housing  of  the  poor.  But  in  the  days  when 
the  "  Peabody  Dwellings  "  began  to  be  occupied  the 
motor  had  not  come  into  existence,  or  the  bicycle  as  we 
now  know  it.  Its  precursor  was  the  velocipede,  a 
ponderous  and  costly  machine  which  as  yet  was  only 
the  luxury  of  men  who  had  money  to  spend,  and  was 
regarded  with  favor  by  very  few  of  these.  Somewhere 
about  the  time  with  which  I  am  now  dealing  I  have  a 
distinct  recollection  that  the  late  Lord  Sherbrooke  (then 
Robert  Lowe)  was  regarded  as  a  very  eccentric  person 
because  he  sometimes  rode  to  the  House  of  Commons 
on  his  velocipede.  Therefore  the  prospect  which  Mr. 
Balfour  looks  forward  to  hopefully  had  not  dawned 
upon  Mr.  Peabody  when  he  began  his  scheme  for  the 
erection  of  working-men's  habitations,  and  it  was  for  the 
most  part  only  a  question  whether  the  decent  working- 
man  should  with  his  family  occupy  a  well-ventilated 
and  well-provided  set  of  rooms  in  a  "  Peabody  Dwell- 
ing "  or  stow  himself,  his  wife  and  children,  in  some 
filthy,  overcrowded  tenement-house  in  one  of  the  worst 
quarters  of  London.  The  idea  of  "  garden  cities " 
had  not  yet  entered  the  mind  of  even  the  most  far-seeing 
philanthropist,  and  Mr.  Peabody's  beneficent  enterprise 
was  thought  by  many  an  heroic  innovation.  Peabody 
only  regarded  his  dwellings  as  the  first  effort  made  in 
the  new  direction,  and  was  well  satisfied  to  have  set  a 
movement  going  which  would  be  sure  to  have  imitators, 
and  to  bring  about  a  new  condition  of  things  for  the 

188 


TWO    PHILANTHROPISTS 

poor  of  London  and  other  great  cities.  He  may  be 
safely  credited  with  having  thus  opened  a  fresh  chapter 
in  the  great  history  of  the  work  undertaken  with  the 
object  of  providing  decent  homes  for  those  of  our  popu- 
lation and  of  all  other  populations  who  live  by  the  labor 
of  their  hands.  Since  his  time  we  have  had  the  dwell- 
ings called  into  existence  by  Lord  Rowton  and  bearing 
his  name,  and  many  other  benevolent  enterprises  of  the 
same  order.  The  whole  movement  which  now  sets  us 
thinking  of  "  garden  cities  " — a  movement  aiming  at 
the  benefit  of  all  classes — may  be  said  to  have  had  its 
origin  in  the  appeal  made  to  public  feeling  when  George 
Peabody  began  to  put  his  humane,  benevolent,  and  en- 
lightened ideas  into  practice.  Queen  Victoria  took  a 
deep  interest  in  Peabody's  projects,  and  sent  him  an 
autograph  letter  with  her  portrait  in  miniature  and  an 
inscription  saying  it  was  sent  by  the  queen  "  to  the 
benefactor  of  the  poor  of  London."  The  Prince  of 
Wales  (now  King  Edward  the  Seventh)  unveiled  a 
statue  of  Peabody  at  the  Royal  Exchange,  and  when 
Peabody  died  in  1869  there  was  a  funeral  service  for 
him  at  Westminster  Abbey.  I  ought  to  say  that  during 
his  life  Peabody  was  offered  a  baronetcy,  but  declined 
to  accept  any  title.  I  have  dwelt  altogether  thus  far  on 
his  efforts  to  provide  decent  homes  for  the  poor,  but  he 
was  also  a  liberal  giver  to  every  public  object,  including 
arctic  expeditions,  which  belonged  to  the  domain  of 
education  and  practical  philanthropy.  We  have  had  so 
much  splendid  work  done  by  millionaires,  native  and 
foreign,  during  later  years  that  I  am  afraid  the  benefi- 
cent enterprises  of  George  Peabody  have  been  fading 
out  of  public  recollection.  I  think  this  is  exactly  what 
George  Peabody  would  himself  have  desired,  for  it 
would  have  much  gratified  his  generous  and  unselfish 
nature  to  know  that  other  men  had  followed  his  ex- 

189 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

ample  with  such  splendid  effect  as  to  outshine  the  lustre 
of  his  charitable  deeds. 

I  had  a  curious  illustration  not  long  ago  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  benefactor  of  one  generation  may  be 
forgotten  even  by  men  who  take  an  active  part  in  the 
business  of  the  generation  that  comes  later.  I  was 
talking  with  a  Londoner  who  is  well  acquainted  with 
the  public  life  and  the  public  men  of  the  present  day, 
and  to  whom  I  should  naturally  turn  for  information 
if  I  wanted  to  know  what  subjects  were  now  occupying 
the  attention  of  metropolitan  circles.  The  talk  turned 
on  some  of  the  lofty  piles  of  flats  which  are  rising  in 
London,  and  I  asked  him  whether  one  of  the  newest  of 
these,  a  building  I  had  not  seen,  did  not  bear  some  re- 
semblance to  the  "  Peabody  Dwellings."  The  name  did 
not  seem  to  carry  any  clear  idea  to  his  mind,  and  I  ex- 
plained that  I  was  speaking  of  the  houses  erected  by 
George  Peabody  the  millionaire.  Then  he  said,  as  if 
some  light  were  coming  on  him,  "  No,  not  in  the  least 
like  that — you  mean  that  great  big  house  erected  long 
ago  in  Kensington — but  I  don't  think  the  name  was 
Peabody."  Some  further  talk  showed  that  he  had  for- 
gotten all  about  George  Peabody,  and  thought  I  was 
referring  to  the  great  house  built  by  the  once  famous 
Baron  Grant,  whose  career  did  not  in  the  least  resemble 
that  of  the  American  philanthropist.  My  friend,  to  be 
sure,  was  not  of  the  elder  generation,  but  it  was  none 
the  less  strange  to  me  that  he  had  forgotten  George  Pea- 
body,  and  remembered  Baron  Grant. 


CHAPTER  XV 

BUSKIN  AND  THE  PRE-BAPHAELITES 

JOHN  RUSZIN  was  one  of  the  great  intellectual  forces 
of  the  sixties.  His  influence  was  in  its  way  as  strong, 
far-reaching,  and  penetrating  as  that  of  Carlyle,  Dick- 
ens, or  Tennyson.  But  there  always  seemed  to  be  this 
peculiarity  about  Ruskin's  dominion  over  his  public — 
it  was  the  power  of  an  intellectual  influence  merely,  and 
not  of  a  man.  The  general  public  never  saw  anything 
of  the  living  Ruskin.  He  seldom,  if  ever,  attended  a 
public  meeting,  or  was  a  guest  at  public  banquets;  he 
never  unveiled  any  memorial  statue  and  delivered  a  dis- 
course thereon ;  he  was  never,  so  far  as  I  can  remember, 
seen  in  the  boxes  or  the  stalls  on  the  first  night  of  some 
great  theatrical  performance.  I  can  remember  one 
time,  when  the  British  Association  or  the  Social  Science 
Association — I  am  not  certain  now  which  it  was  of 
these  two  learned  bodies — was  holding  its  annual  ses- 
sion, and  we  were  all  delighted  by  the  announcement 
that  a  paper  was  to  be  read  by  Mr.  Ruskin.  I  was 
among  the  eagerly  expectant  audience,  but  I  was  doom- 
ed like  all  the  rest  to  disappointment,  for  Mr.  Ruskin 
did  not  present  himself  to  the  meeting,  and  his  paper 
was  read  for  him  in  his  absence.  Of  course  the  paper 
was  well  worth  hearing,  and  well  worth  going  a  long 
distance  to  hear.  But  we  could  all  read  it  in  the  news- 
papers, and  what  we  especially  wanted  was  to  hear  it 
read  by  Mr.  Ruskin  himself.  That  was,  I  think,  the 

191 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

only  occasion  when  I  was  promised  an  opportunity  of 
hearing  Ruskin  speak  in  public,  and  even  at  that  time 
I  was  much  more  in  the  way  of  listening  to  great  men 
in  distinguished  assemblies  than  many  or  most  of  my 
f  ellow-subj  ects. 

The  Londoner  had  many  a  chance  of  seeing  Carlyle 
or  Tennyson,  Dickens  or  Thackeray,  and  he  had  only 
to  walk  to  Palace  Yard  on  any  day  when  Parliament 
was  sitting  if  he  wanted  to  get  a  sight  of  Palmerston 
or  Gladstone  or  Disraeli.  But  Ruskin's  was  not  a  fa- 
miliar figure  in  the  streets  or  parks  of  London.  He 
did  not  spend  much  of  his  time  in  the  metropolis,  and 
even  when  he  spent  any  time  there,  the  ordinary  world 
knew  nothing  of  his  presence,  and  his  photograph  was 
not  familiar  in  the  windows  of  the  picture-shops.  One 
could  hardly  enter  any  company  in  those  days  of  the 
early  sixties  without  meeting  somebody  who  announced 
with  pride  that  he  had  just  seen  Carlyle  in  Chelsea,  or 
Dickens  in  the  Strand,  or  Tennyson  in  St.  James's 
Park,  but  nobody  ever  asserted  that  he  had  just  en- 
countered Ruskin  on  Piccadilly.  In  later  years  of  his 
life,  when  Ruskin  had  been  elected,  and  was  again  and 
again  re-elected,  to  the  Slade  Professorship  of  Fine  Art, 
he  did,  indeed,  deliver  lectures  on  artistic  subjects  to 
crowded  audiences.  On  some  occasions  he  had  to  de- 
liver the  same  lecture  twice  over,  as  it  was  impossible 
to  accommodate,  at  the  one  hearing,  all  those  who  were 
entitled  to  attend,  and  he  had  long  before  this  delivered 
discourses  at  Oxford  and  other  places.  During  the  early 
sixties  he  was  not  known  as  a  lecturer  in  London,  and 
the  vast  body  of  his  devoted  admirers  could  not  reckon 
on  any  opportunity  of  looking  up  to  him  in  person.  But 
among  all  the  eminent  men  of  the  time  there  was  none 
who  commanded  a  greater  body  of  admirers  and  fol- 
lowers. He  created  whole  schools  of  artistic  thinkers, 

192 


JOHN    BUSKIN 


RUSKIN   AND    THE    PRE-RAPHAELITES 

and  gave  occasion  to  incessant  controversies  on  subjects 
belonging  to  literature  and  art. 

Sometimes  Ruskin  ventured  outside  his  own  spheres 
of  thought  and  opinion,  and  set  much  indignation 
going  by  undertaking  to  lay  down  the  law  on  subjects 
concerning  which  he  had  no  claim  to  be  recognized  as 
an  authority.  In  1862  he  wrote  four  essays  for  the 
Cornhill  Magazine,  which  were  entitled  "  Unto  this 
Last,"  and  were  afterwards  republished  in  a  volume. 
These  essays  dealt  with  subjects  some  of  which  were 
beyond  the  range  of  Ruskin's  familiar  studies,  and  they 
provoked  much  criticism  from  writers  who  refused  to 
acknowledge  his  right  of  dictatorship  outside  the  realms 
of  art.  One  irreverent  critic  ventured  to  be  facetious, 
and  declared  that  the  very  title  of  the  work  embodied 
a  motto  which  ought  to  have  been  a  warning  to  Ruskin, 
inasmuch  as  the  proper  work  of  his  life  was  to  mend  art, 
and  that  "  Unto  this  Last  "  he  had  better  stick.  Ruskin 
was  a  born  controversialist,  and  wherever  and  on  what- 
ever topic  a  discussion  was  going  on  he  was  apt  to  feel 
that  he  had  a  mission  to  take  part  in  it.  This  was  but  a 
trivial  and  pardonable  weakness  on  the  part  of  a  man 
who  had  rendered,  and  was  throughout  all  his  life  to 
render,  splendid  service  to  literature  and  art,  and  the 
world  thought  none  the  less  of  him  because  he  now  and 
then  led  a  forlorn  hope  in  some  struggle  which  was  not 
his  own.  As  a  controversialist  there  was  much  in  his 
temperament  which  reminded  one  of  Carlyle,  the  same 
spirit  of  magnificent  dictatorship  made  him  utterly  in- 
different to  any  temporary  repulse,  and  left  him  just 
as  ready  as  ever  to  engage  in  another  battle. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  task  to  attempt  an  exposition 
of  the  triumphs  Ruskin  accomplished  in  his  own  es- 
pecial fields  and  of  the  new  era  he  opened  in  the  world's 
appreciation  of  English  art.  A  more  thoroughly  dis- 
w  193 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

interested  man  never  worked  in  the  cause  of  artistic 
education.  The  generosity  of  his  endowments  to  in- 
stitutions which  were  helping  to  promote  that  cause 
was  only  limited  by  the  extent  of  his  personal  resources. 
His  brilliant,  imaginative,  poetic  style  called  up  hosts 
of  imitators  among  literary  men  and  women  who  pro- 
fessed no  craftsmanship  in  pictorial  art,  and  for  a  time 
there  was  a  style  of  Ruskinese  just  as  there  was  a  style 
of  Carlylese,  and  a  style  fashioned  after  that  of  Dickens 
or  of  Thackeray.  INo  imitation  proved  to  be  more  than 
a  mere  imitation,  and  Ruskin  stands,  and  is  ever  likely 
to  stand,  alone.  We  have  now  completely  passed 
through  the  era  of  controversy ;  we  judge  of  Ruskin  by 
his  greatest  triumphs  and  accept  him  as  one  of  the  best 
literary  exponents  of  true  art  whom  the  world  has  ever 
known.  But  one  should  have  lived  during  the  sixties 
and  many  of  the  years  following  in  order  to  understand 
what  a  battle-call  to  controversy  was  always  sounded 
when  Ruskin  sent  forth  any  proclamation  of  his  creed 
on  this  or  that  subject  of  possible  debate.  I  know  whole 
sets  of  men  and  women  whose  most  eager  and  animated 
conversation  was  founded  on  some  doctrine  laid  down 
by  Ruskin,  and  who  debated  each  question  with  as 
much  earnestness  and  vehemence  as  men  commonly  dis- 
play when  they  are  fighting  over  again  in  private  life 
the  battles  of  party  politics.  There  was  something 
thoroughly  healthy  in  the  animation  of  literary  and 
artistic  controversy  thus  created  in  a  public  which  up 
to  that  time  had  not  concerned  itself  overmuch  with  the 
principles  and  doctrines  of  high  art.  In  other  countries 
more  especially  consecrated  to  artistic  culture  such  a 
condition  of  public  feeling  would  not  have  been  new, 
but  it  was  new  to  the  England  of  Ruskin's  early  fame, 
and  the  breath  of  that  artistic  awakening  has  suffused 
our  atmosphere  down  to  the  present  day.  I  think  it  is 

194 


BUSKIN    AND    THE    PRE-RAPHAELITES 

not  too  much  to  say  that  the  English  public  in  general 
had  never  taken  art  seriously  and  earnestly  until  Rus- 
kin  began  to  write,  and  that  his  influence  has  never 
faded  since  and  shows  no  signs  of  fading. 

But  I  am  again  brought  back  to  the  fact  that  all 
this  time  Ruskin  was  to  the  great  mass  of  the  public 
only  an  influence  and  not  a  living  personality.  Among 
a  large  circle  of  friends  in  those  far-off  days  I  knew 
very  few  who  had  any  close  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  great  teacher  and  could  tell  me  what  he  had  been 
saying  or  doing  last  week,  when  he  was  likely  to  come 
up  to  London  from  his  home  in  the  Lake  country,  and 
where  there  might  be  a  chance  of  seeing  him  when  he 
did  come  within  the  range  of  our  streets.  The  influence 
exercised  by  Ruskin  was,  in  my  opinion,  even  more  dis- 
tinctly original  than  that  of  Carlyle.  I  am  not  sug- 
gesting a  comparison  of  the  value  of  the  two  influences, 
but  merely  considering  the  relative  independence  of 
either  inspiration.  It  cannot  be  questioned  that  Car- 
lyle's  way  of  thinking  was  much  guided  by  German 
thought.  There  are  passages  in  Sartor  Resartus  which 
may  almost  be  called  translations  from  Jean  Paul 
Richter.  We  can  easily  understand  that  this  was  not 
a  conscious  adoption  by  Carlyle  of  ideas  from  the 
German  writer,  but  merely  came  from  the  fact  that 
Richter's  ideas  had  settled  into  his  mind  and  become 
part  of  it.  The  influence  of  Goethe  and  of  Schiller  may 
be  recognized  through  most  of  Carlyle's  writings  at 
one  period  of  his  literary  career.  But  Ruskin's  ideas 
are  all  his  own,  as  his  style  is,  and  the  shadow  of  no 
other  thinker  seems  to  have  come  between  him  and  the 
page  on  which  he  wrote.  When  he  avowedly  adopts  and 
expounds  the  theories  of  other  men  he  always  does  this 
in  his  own  way,  and  manifests  his  own  individuality 
even  in  his  interpretation.  His  influence,  so  long  as  he 

195 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

kept  it  within  the  range  of  subjects  he  had  made  his 
own,  Was  always  of  the  healthiest  and  purest  order. 
The  keen,  artistic  controversies  which  he  set  going  had 
something  inspiriting  and  elevating  in  them.  We,  the 
commonplace  mortals,  were  ever  so  much  the  better  for 
being  taken  now  and  then  out  of  the  ordinary  con- 
troversies, political  and  social,  the  Stock  Exchange,  the 
income-tax,  and  the  odds  at  the  Derby,  and  drawn  into 
partisanship  with  one  side  or  the  other  in  some  dispute 
on  the  true  principles  and  the  best  methods  of  the  paint- 
er's art.  So  far  as  the  truest  lessons  and  the  highest 
practice  of  art  are  concerned,  it  may  be  said  without 
hesitation  that  Ruskin  left  England  much  better  than 
he  found  it,  and  that  his  best  influence,  to  adopt  Grat- 
tan's  words,  "  shall  not  die  with  the  prophet,  but  sur- 
vive him." 

It  would  be  hardly  possible  to  write  of  Ruskin  with- 
out recalling  memories  of  that  famous  pre-Raphaelite 
school  which  was  already  becoming  powerful  in  the 
early  sixties.  That  school  did  not  spring  into  existence 
directly  out  of  the  precepts  of  Ruskin,  and  was  in  some 
ways  independent  of  his  teaching  and  even  opposed  to 
it.  But  its  origin  and  growth  were  part  of  that  great 
artistic  awakening  belonging  to  his  time.  I  do  not  intend 
to  discuss  the  creed  and  practice  of  the  pre-Raphael- 
ite school,  but  my  earliest  recollections  of  its  leaders 
and  its  influence  belong  to  the  period  with  which  this 
volume  is  associated.  Some  of  these  leaders  were  poets 
as  well  as  painters,  and  all  of  them  were  filled  with 
poetic  feeling  and  reverence  for  beauty  of  landscape,  or 
thought,  or  of  the  human  form.  There  is  much  rather 
needless  dispute  even  still  as  to  whether  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  was  greater  as  a  painter  or  as  a  poet.  It  may 
be  taken  as  settled  that  his  poetry  and  his  painting  were 
alike  genuine  art,  and  that  they  both  belonged  to  the 

196 


RUSKIN    AND   THE    PRE-RAPHAELITES 

same  order.  I  never  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet 
Dante  Rossetti,  but  I  met  his  gifted  sister  Christina,  a 
true  poetess,  and  in  later  years  I  had  the  privilege  of 
close  and  enduring  friendship  with  his  brother,  William 
Michael  Rossetti.  For  the  last  few  years  I  have  been 
living  not  far  from  that  churchyard  at  Birchington  in 
Kent  which  encloses  the  tomb  of  Dante  Rossetti  de- 
signed by  his  companion  in  art,  my  late  friend  Ford 
Madox  Brown.  I  often  visit  that  grave,  and  am 
always  the  better  for  the  associations  which  it  calls 
up. 

Ford  Madox  Brown  was  generally  regarded  as  the 
founder  of  the  pre-Raphaelite  school,  and  although  he 
never  wrote  poems,  so  far  as  I  know,  or  published  books, 
he  had  a  thorough  appreciation  of  the  artistic  in  every 
form,  and  was  a  man  of  remarkably  varied  culture  and 
keen  original  observation.  His  house  in  Fitzroy  Square 
was  for  many  years  a  centre  of  artistic  and  intellectual 
companionship  for  all  who  had  proved  or  seemed  likely 
to  prove  themselves  worthy  of  a  place  in  such  society. 
I  have  been  a  good  deal  among  authors  and  painters  in 
my  time,  and  I  never  met  anywhere  more  brilliant 
gatherings  of  men  and  women  belonging  to  these  arts 
than  those  which  used  to  assemble  in  Madox  Brown's 
home.  During  the  years  I  am  now  surveying  Dante 
Rossetti's  broken  and  sinking  health  never  allowed  him 
to  take  part  in  these  assemblies,  but  almost  every  other 
man  distinguished  in  art,  to  whatever  school  he  belong- 
ed, was  sure  to  be  met  at  one  time  or  another  in  that 
delightful  company.  William  Michael  Rossetti  has 
published  many  charming  recollections  of  his  friends 
and  companions  in  those  days,  and  every  page  that  he 
has  written  I  have  read  again  and  again  with  ever-re- 
newing although  melancholy  enjoyment.  The  peculiar 
influence  of  the  pre-Raphaelites  suffused  all  intellectual 

107 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

society  throughout  England  in  those  days  and  spread 
itself  over  continental  Europe  and  across  the  Atlantic. 
A  whole  host  of  young  poets  and  poetesses  came  up 
whose  song-notes  were  instinctively  attuned  to  the 
melody  of  Dante  Rossetti,  just  as  a  whole  school  of 
young  painters  came  into  being  whose  peculiar  form 
of  art  was  the  birth  of  his  inspiration.  Punch  and  the 
other  comic  journals  made  much  fun  of  these  aspiring 
and  imitative  young  pre-Raphaelites,  and  it  must  be 
owned  that  some  at  least  of  them  reproduced  the  con- 
tortions of  the  sibyl  without  her  inspiration.  The 
stage  lent  itself  to  many  a  burlesque  of  pre-Raphaelit- 
ism,  and  more  than  one  comic  actor  made  a  decided  hit 
by  his  presentation  of  a  self -inspired  typical  worshipper 
at  the  Rossetti  shrine.  Households  were  divided,  once 
happy  homes  were  disturbed  by  the  unceasing  contro- 
versies between  the  new  school  and  the  old.  The  result 
of  my  general  observation  was  that  the  elders  of  the 
family  set  their  faces  against  the  new  worship  and  the 
younger  were  prepared,  if  necessary,  to  go  into  the  fiery 
furnace,  metaphorically  at  least,  on  its  behalf.  It  had, 
of  course,  a  phraseology  of  its  own  as  distinct  as  that  of 
the  "  precious  "  school  immortalized  by  Moliere,  and 
the  most  familiar  and  ordinary  phenomena  of  life  were 
commonly  described  by  devotees  of  the  pre-Rapnaelite 
cult  in  terms  which  failed  to  convey  any  idea  -to  the 
mind  of  the  ordinary  listener.  I  think  the  influence 
was  even  more  marked  and  more  haunting  in  literature 
than  in  painting.  Perhaps  the  obvious  explanation  of 
this  may  be  that  it  is  easier  to  prove  one's  devotion  to 
an  artistic  creed  in  print  than  in  painting.  To  write  an 
essay  or  a  poem,  supposing  one  has  any  capacity  for 
writing,  calls  only  for  the  sacrifice  of  a  few  pages  of 
paper,  while  one  who  would  paint  a  picture  must  have 
devoted  considerable  time  to  the  mere  mechanical  work 

198 


RUSKIN    AND    THE    PRE-RAPHAELITES 

of  the  craft  before  he  can  exhibit  the  public  testimony 
of  his  devotion. 

The  age  of  pre-Raphaelitism  was  decidedly  full  of 
interesting  sensations  even  to  the  unpledged  and  impar- 
tial observer  who  studied  it  merely  as  a  passing  intel- 
lectual pastime.  If  it  did  nothing  better  it  at  least 
gave  us  a  fresh  subject  of  conversation  in  social  life 
and  lifted  us  now  and  then  out  of  the  barren  common- 
places of  talk.  I  am  convinced  that  with  all  its  affecta- 
tions, extravagances,  and  absurdities  it  did  much  real 
and  enduring  good  by  inspiring  the  public  of  these  coun- 
tries with  a  new  interest  in  the  life  and  lessons  of  art. 
I  must  ask  my  readers  to  understand  that  in  this  some- 
what qualified  praise  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  great 
pre-Raphaelite  leaders  and  teachers  in  painting  or 
literature.  Such  men  as  Ford  Madox  Brown,  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti,  and  Burne-Jones  rank  with  the  great 
painters  of  all  time.  Poets  like  Swinburne  and  Will- 
iam Morris  created  a  new  chapter  in  literature.  But 
even  the  schools  which  they  unconsciously  founded,  of 
imitators  who  reproduced  more  often  the  mannerisms 
than  the  artistic  qualities,  exercised  an  influence  on  the 
whole  beneficial  to  the  intellect  of  the  country  and  de- 
serve to  be  remembered  with  approval  and  gratitude. 

Something,  has  to  be  said  about  that  aesthetic  move- 
ment, as  it  was  called,  which  was  a  curious  offshoot  of 
pre-Raphaelitism  and  manifested  itself  in  mannerisms 
and  tricks  rather  than  in  efforts  of  artistic  achievement 
with  pen  or  pencil.  The  aesthetic  movement  obtruded 
itself  into  social  life  everywhere  and  affected  a  style  of 
speech,  manners,  and  costume  peculiarly  its  own.  The 
ambition  of  the  aesthete  was  to  be  regarded  as  a  pre- 
Raphaelite,  and  he  generally  thought  that  the  easiest 
and  best  way  of  passing  off  as  a  pre-Raphaelite  was  to 
show  himself  as  unlike  as  possible  to  the  ordinary 

199 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Briton.  He  talked  a  jargon  quite  his  own,  he  clothed 
himself  with  affectation  as  with  a  garment,  and  in  his 
material  garments  he  adopted  a  style  which  presented 
to  social  life  an  imitation  of  the  semi-Bohemian  garb — 
the  velvet  coats,  turned-down  collars,  and  soft  felt  hats 
which  may  be  described  as  the  sort  of  uniform  adopted 
for  comfort  and  convenience  in  the  working-studio  of 
the  painter  or  sculptor.  I  have  said  that  "  he  "  did  all 
this,  but  the  women  who  were  anxious  to  parade  them- 
selves as  disciples  of  the  aesthetic  school,  and  whose 
name  at  one  time  was  truly  legion,  outrivalled  their 
masculine  comrades  in  peculiarities  of  dress  and  man- 
ner. The  lady  who  appeared  at  all  manner  of  social 
gatherings  in  long,  lank,  clinging  draperies  of  faded, 
melancholy  hue,  and  bearing  a  bunch  of  lilies  in  her 
hand,  was  a  figure  as  familiar  as  it  was  characteristic  of 
the  movement. 

The  aesthetes  created  much  amusement  in  their  day, 
and  it  must  be  owned  that  they  also  aroused  much  ad- 
miration and  not  less  imitation ;  but  their  day  was  com- 
paratively short  and  they  have  almost  passed  out  of  the 
memory  of  the  living  world.  The  present  generation 
can  study  them  and  their  ways  if  so  inclined  by  turn- 
ing back  to  the  pages  of  Punch  and  gazing  on  the 
typical  figures  of  Maudle  and  Postlethwaite  and  the 
charming  creatures  of  the  other  sex  who  competed  with 
them  in  vagaries  of  dress  and  manner.  Perhaps  the 
zenith  of  their  career  was  reached  when  they  were  set 
before  the  public  in  the  delightful  dramatic  presenta- 
tions which  we  owe  to  the  combined  genius  of  Gilbert 
and  Sullivan.  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  thought  wanting 
in  respect  to  the  noble  character  and  the  exalted  intel- 
lect of  Ruskin  because  I  have  introduced  some  mention 
of  the  aesthetic  movement  into  the  chapter  adorned  with 
his  portrait  and  dedicated  to  his  name.  The  plain  truth 

200 


RUSKIN    AND    THE    PRE-RAPHAELITES 

is  that  the  great  awakening  of  England's  artistic  life 
which  was  accomplished  by  Ruskin  could  not  have  been 
brought  about  without  its  accompaniment  of  blundering 
misinterpretation  and  its  servile  crowd  of  perversely 
mistaken  imitators.  Every  great  original  movement  in 
letters  or  art  or  political  life  is  doomed  to  be  thus  paro- 
died and  burlesqued  by  inane  admirers  who  fancy  that 
by  aping  a  mannerism  they  are  reproducing  a  style. 
Sincerity  is  at  the  core  of  all  true  art,  but  to  imitate 
sincerity  is  to  be  insincere  and  to  be  doomed  to  failure 
and  oblivion. 


CHAPTEK    XVI 

JOHN   ABTHUB   ROEBUCK 

JOHN  ARTHUR  ROEBUCK  was  one  of  the  most  striking 
and,  in  a  certain  sense,  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
figures  of  the  sixties.  He  was  especially  what  Amer- 
icans would  call  a  "  live  "  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  observer  did  not  always  know  where  to 
have  him,  and  no  matter  how  clearly  marked  the  divid- 
ing lines  might  be  on  any  question,  it  was  not  easy  to 
tell  beforehand  what  views  John  Arthur  Roebuck  might 
take  upon  himself  to  advocate.  But  it  was  always  cer- 
tain that  whatever  opinions  he  held  he  would  express 
them  with  decisiveness  and  emphasis,  and  would  throw 
his  whole  soul  into  the  support  of  his  cause.  Roebuck 
was  a  man  short  of  stature  and  of  seemingly  delicate 
and  fragile  frame.  He  had  a  very  expressive  face, 
which  gave  full  meaning  to  every  argument  and  sen- 
tence, and  he  often  added  point  to  his  utterances  by 
emphatic  though  never  extravagant  gesture.  His  voice 
was  clear,  strong,  and  penetrating,  and  he  always  ap- 
peared to  be  addressing  himself  directly  to  his  hearers, 
not  merely  talking  at  them  or  speechifying  over  their 
heads.  His  manner  seemed  from  first  to  last  as  if  he 
intended  to  drive  into  the  mind  of  his  listeners  the  con- 
viction that  whatever  they  might  think  about  what  he 
was  saying  they  must  listen  to  it  and  not  lose  a  word. 
Now  this  peculiarity  of  manner  might  have  had  a  very 
poor  effect,  and  might  soon  cease  to  have  any  effect  at 
all,  if  Roebuck  were  merely  a  man  who  had  the  art  of 

202 


JOHN    ARTHUR    ROEBUCK 

saying  nothing  in  penetrating  tone  and  with  emphatic 
gesture.  But  Roebuck  never  talked  nothings,  never 
uttered  platitudes,  never  descended  to  commonplaces, 
and  never  took  a  merely  conventional  view  of  any  sub- 
ject, no  matter  how  often  it  might  have  been  discussed 
before. 

Roebuck  was  not  an  orator  in  the  greatest  sense  of 
the  word:  he  wanted  the  imagination,  the  enthusiasm, 
the  passion  which  are  needed  to  create  eloquence  of  the 
highest  order.  ~No  flashes  of  the  poetic  illumined  his 
penetrating  and  destructive  argument,  and  we  may  take 
it  for  granted  that  no  passages  from  his  speeches  will  be 
preserved  for  the  study  and  delight  of  readers  in  com- 
ing generations.  But  he  was  one  of  the  most  impres- 
sive and  captivating  parliamentary  debaters  of  his  time. 
The  stranger  in  the  House  of  Commons  who  had  been 
fortunate  enough  to  hear  a  debate  in  which  Gladstone, 
Bright,  Disraeli,  and  Roebuck  had  spoken  might  be 
trusted  to  carry  away  with  him  a  distinct  and  abiding 
memory  of  Roebuck's  speech,  however  he  may  have 
been  impressed  and  influenced  by  the  eloquence  of  the 
greater  orators.  Roebuck's  style  showed  itself  most 
effectively  in  sarcastic  analysis  of  the  arguments  to 
which  he  found  himself  opposed.  His  natural  work  in 
debate  was  destructive  and  not  constructive.  He  did  not 
often  plead  any  cause  of  his  own,  but  was  most  thor- 
oughly himself  when  showing  up,  in  satirical  exposi- 
tion, the  weaknesses  of  the  cause  of  his  opponents.  Even 
when  he  encountered  Disraeli,  as  he  often  did  at  one 
period  of  his  career,  he  proved  himself  able  to  hold  his 
own  against  that  master  of  flouts  and  jeers,  if  I  may 
employ  towards  Disraeli  himself  the  words  he  applied 
on  a  famous  occasion  to  the  late  Lord  Salisbury.  It 
must  be  remembered  also  that  Roebuck's  mind  was  full 
of  ideas,  that  his  education  had  been  helped  by  unusual 

203 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

experiences,  and  that  no  matter  how  often  or  how  unex- 
pectedly he  changed  his  opinions  he  always  spoke  in 
the  tone  and  with  the  effect  of  one  whose  whole  previous 
lifetime  had  gone  to  form  the  convictions  he  was  ex- 
pressing with  such  earnestness  at  that  moment. 

I  have  just  said  that  Roebuck's  experiences  were 
somewhat  unusual.  He  was  born  at  Madras,  and  de- 
rived the  impressions  of  his  earliest  years  from  Indian 
atmosphere  and  ways  of  life.  While  yet  a  boy  he  was 
taken  to  Canada,  and  lived  there  until  he  had  grown  to 
full  manhood.  Then  he  oame  to  England  for  the  pur- 
pose of  studying  law,  and  was  admitted  a  barrister  of 
the  Inner  Temple.  At  this  time  he  was  not  quite 
thirty  years  old,  but  he  had  already  made  a  distinct 
mark  for  himself  as  an  advocate  of  reform  and  a  mas- 
terly exponent  of  the  views  entertained  by  the  progres- 
sive party  of  those  days.  He  was  sent  to  the  House  of 
Commons  as  representative  of  Bath  during  the  first 
election  after  the  great  Reform  bill.  The  reformers  of 
Canada  regarded  Roebuck  as  one  of  themselves,  seeing 
that  the  whole  of  his  early  manhood  had  been  passed 
among  them,  and  when  the  disputes  broke  out  between 
the  Canadian  populations  and  the  home  government — 
disputes  which  were  followed  by  the  rebellion  in  Can- 
ada and  were  brought  to  a  happy  ending  by  the  en- 
lightened statesmanship  of  Lord  Durham — Roebuck 
was  appointed  agent  for  the  House  of  Assembly  of 
Lower  Canada,  and  pleaded  their  cause  at  the  bar  of 
the  House  of  Commons. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Roebuck  had  in  addition  to  his 
natural  gifts  an  experience  and  training  very  different 
from  those  of  the  ordinary  legislator.  During  that 
period  of  his  political  career  to  which  this  chapter  has 
especial  reference  he  was  member  for  Sheffield,  and 
long  after  he  had  been  elected  to  another  constituency 

204 


JOHN   ARTHUR   ROEBUCK,   M.P. 

From  an  Engraving   by  D.  J.   Pound,  after  a  Photograph 
Mai/all 


JOHN   ARTHUR    ROEBUCK 

he  was  still  regarded  by  the  British  public  in  general 
as  the  member  for  Sheffield  and  nothing  else.  Few  men 
were  more  often  alluded  to  in  debate,  and  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  sixties  it  would  hardly  have  been 
possible  for  a  stranger  to  sit  out  a  whole  evening  in  the 
House  of  Commons  without  hearing  pointed  reference 
made  to  something  which  had  been  said  by  the  honor- 
able member  for  Sheffield.  Roebuck  was  always  in- 
volving himself  in  controversy  of  some  kind,  was  un- 
sparing in  ridicule  and  bitter  of  speech.  He  seemed  to 
take  a  pleasure  in  rubbing  people  up  the  wrong  way. 
Not  that  he  was  an  unkindly  man  by  nature.  Those 
who  knew  him  could  always  tell  of  kindly  actions  he 
had  done,  and  despite  his  occasional  outbursts  of  quar- 
relsomeness he  kept  many  friendships  unbroken  to  the 
last  So  far  as  I  had  any  means  of  judging,  his  spirit 
of  sarcastic  and  acrimonious  controversy  became 
aroused  only  when  he  was  engaged  in  public  dispute, 
and  did  not  possess  him  in  the  ordinary  intercourse  of 
life.  At  least  I  can  offer  the  testimony  of  my  own  ob- 
servation that  when  I  had  frequent  opportunities  of 
meeting  him  in  private  I  cannot  remember  that  he  ever 
displayed  an  acrimonious  or  domineering  temper  in 
conversation.  He  was  especially  interesting  when  led 
on  to  describe  some  of  his  past  experiences,  and  he  was 
very  happy  in  spontaneous  and  vivid  descriptions  of 
great  parliamentary  scenes  in  which  he  had  taken  part. 
I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  got  a  better  idea  of  the  elo- 
quence of  Daniel  O'Connell  than  was  conveyed  to  me 
in  a  short  talk  with  Roebuck,  who  had  always  fully 
recognized  the  powers  of  the  great  Irish  orator.  Roe- 
buck liked  to  hear  of  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  world 
around  him,  even  of  social  developments  which  might 
appear  to  have  little  or  nothing  in  common  with  his 
own  ways  of  life.  He  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  the 

205 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

annual  exhibitions  of  the  Royal  Academy  and  other 
picture-galleries,  and  he  could  keep  his  place  in  a  long 
talk  over  painting  and  sculpture  with  a  sincerity  of  in- 
terest which  would  never  have  suggested  to  the  listening 
stranger  that  the  greater  part  of  Roebuck's  life  had  been 
absorbed  in  political  warfare. 

At  the  time  when  I  came  to  know  Roebuck  person- 
ally his  life  was  already  drawing  to  its  close.  I  do  not 
mean  to  convey  the  idea  that  Roebuck  was  becoming  an 
old  man  and  that  he  must  soon  pass  out  of  this  world. 
That  would  only  be  to  say  of  him  what  must  be  said  of 
every  man  who  had  numbered  so  many  years.  But 
there  was  at  that  time  something  in  Roebuck's  whole 
manner  and  way  of  looking  at  things  which  impressed 
one  with  the  conviction  that  he  regarded  his  political 
career  as  over,  that  he  had  laid  it  in  its  grave  and  was 
composing  its  epitaph.  It  was  not  that  his  years  or  his 
physical  infirmities  shut  off  all  possibility  of  his  still 
doing  work  in  the  political  field.  At  the  time  of  his 
death  he  had  only  attained  an  age  when  Gladstone  was 
still  actively  directing  the  fortunes  of  a  great  party  and 
was  looking  forward  with  hope  to  fresh  triumphs  of 
legislation.  Many  men  are  able  to  keep  up  their  active 
concern  in  public  affairs  until  the  moment  when  a  com- 
plete break-down  compels  them  to  absolute  quietude. 
But  Roebuck  appeared  to  have  made  up  his  mind  that 
his  political  career  belonged  to  the  past,  and  to  have  sat 
in  the  House  of  Commons  just  as  an  outworn  veteran 
sits  in  his  fireside  chair  and  talks  of  the  events  of  pass- 
ing life  as  matters  in  which  he  has  no  personal  concern. 
But  he  was  not  one  of  the  men  who  settle  down  con- 
tentedly to  old  age  and  find  it  something  of  a  relief  to 
be  counted  out  of  all  struggle.  Roebuck  chafed  at  the 
advance  of  years,  and  was  sometimes  quite  pathetic  in 
his  complaints  against  the  process  of  growing  old. 

206 


JOHN    ARTHUR    ROEBUCK 

Many  men  who  were  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons during  the  last  session  or  two  of  Roebuck's  life 
must  remember  the  struggles  which  some  of  his  friends 
used  to  make  in  order  to  have  his  usual  place  on  the 
benches  always  reserved  for  him.  The  rules  of  the 
House  are  strict  as  regards  the  occupation  of  seats.  The 
front  bench  on  the  government  side  is  always  reserved 
for  members  of  the  administration.  The  front  opposi- 
tion bench  is  reserved  by  the  same  sort  of  understanding 
for  the  leading  members  of  the  party  out  of  power  who 
once  had  seats  on  the  treasury  bench  and  might  come, 
after  any  parliamentary  crisis,  to  have  seats  there  again. 
But  there  is  no  rule  of  the  House,  written  or  unwritten, 
which  secures  a  privilege  of  this  kind  for  an  indepen- 
dent member,  even  if  he  be  a  man  of  the  highest  political 
influence  and  distinction.  One  of  the  established  usages 
of  the  House  is  that  a  member  to  whom  for  any  great 
public  services,  civil  or  military,  the  thanks  of  the 
House  have  been  voted,  is  regarded  as  entitled  to  keep 
the  place  he  occupied  when  this  distinction  was  con- 
ferred upon  him.  The  ordinary  members  of  the  House 
can  only  retain  their  seats  by  right  of  priority.  Each 
man  comes  to  Westminster  Palace  as  early  as  he  can, 
selects  the  best  seat  he  finds  available  on  the  benches 
open  to  his  choice,  and  later  on,  after  prayers  have  been 
said,  by  putting  his  card  into  a  little  frame  at  the  back 
of  the  bench,  secures  the  right  of  the  place  for  that  one 
sitting.  It  is,  perhaps,  hardly  necessary  to  remind  my 
readers  that  the  House  of  Commons — that  is,  the  de- 
bating chamber — does  not  hold  nearly  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  seats  to  accommodate  all  the  members.  When  a 
great  debate  is  expected  members  come  down  to  the 
House  at  the  moment  when  its  doors  are  first  opened  in 
the  morning — sometimes  they  plant  themselves  outside 
the  doors  long  before  they  are  opened — and  then  strug- 

207 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

gle  as  best  they  can  to  secure  a  place  by  a  competition 
that  is  not  uncommonly  rather  fierce  and  turbulent. 
When  a  member  has  thus  secured  his  seat  he  can  spend 
his  hours  in  the  library  or  the  newspaper-room,  or  any 
other  part  of  the  House,  but  he  must  not  leave  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  House,  and  his  hat  must  be  left  behind  him 
on  the  seat  which  he  proposes  to  occupy,  or  else  he  will 
forfeit  his  right  to  assume  his  seat  there  when  the 
Speaker  takes  the  chair  and  the  House  opens  its  busi- 
ness with  prayer. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a  man  of  Roebuck's 
age  and  physical  infirmities  should  come  down  to  West- 
minster Palace  early  in  the  morning  on  some  day  when 
a  great  debate  was  expected  and  hang  about  the  build- 
ing for  all  the  early  hours  in  order  to  secure  a  place 
during  the  sitting.  But  the  rules  of  the  House  are 
clear,  and  there  was  no  other  way  by  which  Roebuck, 
who  had  not  been  a  member  of  a  government,  and  had 
never  been  publicly  thanked  by  a  vote  of  the  Commons, 
could  hold  himself  free  from  the  ordinary  competition. 
The  courtesy  of  members  could  always  allow  his  favor- 
ite seat  to  remain  free  for  his  occupancy,  and  this  was 
just  the  privilege  which  some  of  his  friends  were  of  late 
strenuous  to  obtain  for  him.  But  the  trouble  was  that 
the  House  is  always  having  an  accession  of  new  mem- 
bers, and  that  the  men  latest  returned  to  Parliament 
might  not  know  anything  about  Roebuck's  wishes  or 
the  privilege  his  friends  were  endeavoring  to  secure  for 
him.  A  man  who  had  come  down  to  Westminster  Pal- 
ace at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  secure  a  seat,  and 
had  hung  about  the  library  and  reading-rooms,  corridors 
and  lobbies,  until  three  o'clock,  when  the  House  met 
for  the  despatch  of  business,  might  show  himself  some- 
what dissatisfied  if,  an  hour  or  two  later,  Mr.  Roebuck 
entered  the  chamber  and  made  confidently  for  the  occu- 

208 


JOHN    ARTHUR    ROEBUCK 

pied  seat.  Moreover,  Roebuck  was  always  setting  men 
against  him  by  the  bitterness  of  his  comments  on  some- 
thing which  they  or  their  party  had  done,  and  so  they 
were  not  inclined  to  be  chivalric  in  self-sacrificing 
politeness.  Therefore,  there  was  for  a  long  time  a  con- 
stant struggle  made  by  the  watchfulness  and  activity 
of  some  of  Roebuck's  friends  to  secure  for  him  his 
favorite  seat  at  any  time  when  it  suited  him  to  enter  the 
House.  I  can  remember  many  odd  and  amusing  little 
episodes  arising  out  of  this  peculiar  source  of  dispute 
which  enlivened  the  ordinary  business  of  the  House, 
and  were  a  subject  of  wonder  to  uninformed  strangers 
in  the  galleries. 

My  personal  knowledge  of  the  House  does  not  go 
back  so  far  as  the  days  when  Roebuck  won  his  highest 
reputation  there  as  an  independent  fighter  and  debater 
of  the  highest  mark.  My  close  observation  of  the  House 
only  began  with  the  sixties,  and  at  that  time  the  career 
of  Roebuck  as  a  real  parliamentary  influence  was  al- 
ready on  the  decline.  Perhaps  his  most  remarkable 
achievement  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  accomplish- 
ed when,  during  the  Crimean  War,  he  succeeded  in 
carrying  his  famous  motion  for  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  of  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the  campaign, 
and  thus  brought  about  the  fall  of  the  Aberdeen  minis- 
try and  the  creation  of  a  new  government  under  Lord 
Palmerston.  He  was  always  saying  and  doing  unex- 
pected things,  and  no  session  was  likely  to  pass  without 
his  creating  a  sensation  by  some  motion  or  some  speech 
which  set  the  public  talking  and  wondering.  His  way, 
apparently,  was  to  yield  himself  absolutely  up  to 
promptings  of  the  moment  and  to  express  his  mood  in 
some  thrilling  sentence,  some  audacious  paradox,  or 
some  rasping  sarcasm  without  any  reference  to  general 
principles  or  to  personal  consistency.  He  had  passed 
14  '  209 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

much  of  his  life  in  association  with  men  who  devoted 
themselves  to  the  advancement  of  human  freedom  and 
the  teaching  of  an  exalted  political  morality.  Yet  no 
one  could  ever  count  on  Roebuck's  applying  these  prin- 
ciples to  any  subject  which  happened  to  be  the  occasion 
of  a  stirring  political  debate.  He  became  an  impas- 
sioned advocate  of  the  Southern  Confederation  during 
the  American  civil  war,  and  went  so  far  as  to  bring 
forward  a  motion  in  the  House  of  Commons  calling  on 
the  government  to  recognize  the  Southern  States  as  an 
independent  power.  There  were  many  men  on  Roe- 
buck's side  of  the  House  who  held  the  same  views  with 
regard  to  the  American  civil  war,  and  who  were  ready 
to  call  for  the  recognition  of  the  South,  but  they  were 
not  men  of  Roebuck's  culture  or  up  to  the  level  of  his 
intellect.  It  was  very  disheartening,  at  the  time,  to  find 
that  the  early  and  close  associate  of  John  Stuart  Mill 
and  George  Grote  should  thus  go  utterly  astray  both  as 
to  the  principles  and  the  possibilities  of  the  great  Amer- 
ican struggle. 

When  difficulties  arose  between  the  settlers  and  the 
natives  in  one  of  our  Australasian  colonies,  Roebuck 
astonished  most  of  his  friends,  who  still  regarded  him 
as  an  advocate  of  equal  human  rights,  by  delivering  a 
speech  in  the  House  of  Commons  the  purport  of  which 
was  to  lay  down  as  a  law  of  nature  that  wherever  the 
white  man  and  "  the  brown  man  "  were  brought  to- 
gether the  brown  man  was  destined  to  disappear  off  the 
face  of  the  earth.  This  might  have  been  a  very  harm- 
less proposition  if  it  were  enunciated  to  some  scientific 
society,  but  when  it  was  put  forth  in  a  parliamentary 
debate  with  a  view  to  discouraging  the  House  of  Com- 
mons from  adopting  measures  for  the  protection  of  na- 
tive populations  in  the  colonies,  it  could  not  fail  to 
startle  and  grieve  many  of  Roebuck's  sincere  admirers 

210 


JOHN    ARTHUR    ROEBUCK 

and  friends.  Probably  Roebuck  had  no  theory  on  the 
subject  when  the  debate  began,  but  as  he  listened  to  the 
discussion  and  felt  the  impulse  to  take  part  in  it,  it  may 
have  flashed  upon  his  mind  that  such  a  maxim  would  be 
an  epigrammatic  and  taking  form  for  the  settlement 
of  the  whole  question.  Roebuck  was  especially  happy 
as  a  phrase-maker,  if  we  only  estimate  the  phrases  on 
their  own  merits  as  phrases  and  without  any  trouble- 
some inquiry  into  their  meaning  and  application.  He 
was  familiarly  known  for  a  long  time  as  the  "  dog 
Tear'em,"  an  epithet  adopted  from  one  of  his  own 
speeches.  His  exaggerations  of  style  gave  great  of- 
fence now  and  then  to  whole  classes  of  the  popula- 
tion. 

At  one  time  while  Roebuck  was  engaged  in  an  im- 
passioned controversy  on  the  subject  of  trades-unions 
and  strikes  he  made  a  speech,  not  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, if  I  remember  rightly,  in  which  he  described  the 
working-man  of  a  certain  order  as  one  who,  when  he 
returns  from  his  work  in  the  evening,  first  caresses  his 
dog  and  then  kicks  his  wife.  Working-men  in  general 
resented  very  naturally  this  way  of  depicting  them  as  a 
calumny  and  an  insult  to  the  whole  laboring  popula- 
tion. Roebuck  was  well  justified  in  his  vehement  con- 
demnation of  much  that  was  done  at  one  time  by  the 
organizers  of  some  of  the  great  strikes,  but  he  never 
distinguished  carefully  between  those  who  committed  or 
authorized  some  act  of  wrong  and  those  who  were  main- 
taining by  fair  means  their  side  of  the  controversy, 
which  the  wrong-doing,  through  no  fault  of  theirs,  en- 
dangered and  disgraced.  I  have  often  seen  it  stated 
during  recent  years  that  when  Roebuck  lost  his  seat  for 
Sheffield  in  1868  his  defeat  was  entirely  due  to  the 
manner  in  which  he  had  condemned  the  strikes.  But 
this  is  not  a  fair  description  of  the  facts.  Roebuck  had 

211 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

aroused  among  a  large  number  of  his  constituents  a 
strong  feeling  of  hostility  because  of  the  reckless  sup- 
port he  gave  to  the  side  of  the  South  in  the  American 
civil  war,  and  that  hostility  was  one  of  the  principal 
causes  of  his  defeat.  Six  years  after,  when  the  heat 
of  the  controversy*  about  the  American  struggle  had 
cooled  down,  he  was  once  again  elected  for  Sheffield 
and  continued  to  represent  the  constituency  until  his 
death. 

When  John  Stuart  Mill  was  elected  member  for 
Westminster  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Roebuck  de- 
clared that  he  would  have  gone  upon  his  knees  to  Mill 
and  begged  of  him  not  to  accept  a  seat  in  Parliament 
if  by  such  prostration  he  could  have  prevailed  upon  his 
friend  not  to  waste  any  part  of  his  life  in  the  House. 
Many  quiet  observers  felt  at  the  time  that  this  declara- 
tion of  Roebuck's,  although  set  forth  with  characteristic 
extravagance,  represented  a  reasonable  and  rightful 
feeling.  Mill  acted,  as  he  always  did,  with  a  purely  un- 
selfish desire  to  do  all  he  could  for  the  public  service. 
He  had  been  prevailed  upon  to  enter  Parliament  by  the 
earnest  representations  of  friends,  on  whose  judgment 
he  could  rely,  that  just  at  that  time  he  could  do  no  work 
in  his  study  so  important  for  the  service  of  more  than 
one  great  cause  as  to  ally  himself  with  the  small  section 
of  advanced  and  enlightened  Liberals  in  the  House,  and 
give  them  the  support  of  his  personal  advocacy  and  in- 
fluence. But  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  Roebuck's 
friendship  and  admiration  for  Mill  were  genuine,  and 
that  it  was  entirely  because  of  such  friendship  and  ad- 
miration that  he  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  seeing  Mill 
involved  in  the  wrangles  and  the  political  intrigues  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  There  was  a  strong  dash  of 
sentiment  in  Roebuck,  although  he  went  in  especially 
for  intellectual  strength  and  practical  judgment  as  the 

212 


JOHN    ARTHUR    ROEBUCK 

essential  characteristics  of  a  public  man.  Nothing,  I 
should  think,  would  have  pleased  Roebuck  less  than  to 
be  told  that  there  was  something  of  feminine  sentiment 
in  his  composition,  but  the  truth  was  that  he  often  gave 
way  to  what  seemed  to  be  the  capricious  and  almost 
hysterical  impulses  we  associate  with  the  temperament 
of  woman.  His  nature  was  made  up  of  contradictions 
to  a  degree  which  often  bewildered  those  who  had  known 
him  longest  and  best.  One  noble  quality  I  have  never 
heard  denied  to  him,  even  by  those  most  often  brought 
into  antagonism  with  him,  and  that  was  the  quality  of 
sincerity. 

If  Roebuck's  ambition  had  been  to  make  for  himself 
a  high  place  in  a  liberal  or  tory  government  he  could 
have  found  no  difficulty  in  satisfying  his  desire.  Men 
without  a  tithe  of  his  intellectual  capacity,  men  who 
could  not  have  compared  with  him  as  debaters,  were 
obtaining  well-paid  offices  in  one  or  other  administra- 
tion, and  were  securing  the  certainty  of  reappointment 
whenever  their  party  should  come  into  power.  But 
that  was  not  Roebuck's  way,  and  when  he  got  some' 
new  idea  into  his  head,  right  or  wrong,  he  was  sure  to 
follow  it  without  the  slightest  regard  for  his  own  par- 
liamentary prospects.  He  was  known  to  be  a  poor  man, 
but  he  was  never  suspected  of  venality.  The  severest 
criticism  that  could  be  brought  against  him  is  that 
he  was  sometimes  inspired  by  a  perverse  desire  to  make 
the  worse  seem  the  better  cause  for  the  mere  sake  of  dis- 
playing argumentative  ingenuity.  Those  who  think 
most  highly  of  him  will  always  be  glad  to  remember  that 
the  finest  speeches  he  ever  delivered  were  made  in  the 
support  of  some  cause  which  had  the  approval  of  such 
among  his  early  associates  as  Grote  and  Mill.  I  have 
not  taken  account  in  this  chapter  of  Roebuck's  written 
works,  some  of  which,  like  his  History  of  the  Whig 

213 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Ministry  in  1830,  made  a  considerable  mark  in  their 
time.  I  have  been  thinking  only  of  the  man  himself 
as  I  knew  him,  the  man  who  did  not  always  do  justice 
to  his  own  highest  capacities,  but  who  must  ever  have 
an  honored  place  in  the  history  of  English  political  life. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

ITALY'S  ENGLISH  SYMPATHIZERS 

THOSE  who  can  remember  England  in  the  sixties 
must  remember  well  the  outpouring  of  English  sym- 
pathy with  the  Italian  struggle  for  release  from  the 
rule  of  Austria  and  the  Bourbons.  I  have  already  made 
passing  allusion  to  the  enthusiasm  aroused  by  Gari- 
baldi's visit  to  England,  and  the  demonstrations  of 
welcome,  private  and  public,  made  in  his  honor.  One 
of  Italy's  most  ardent  advocates  in  those  days  was  the 
late  James  Stansfeld,  and  his  devotion  to  the  Italian 
cause  brought  him  into  some  unmerited  trouble  at  the 
time.  James  Stansfeld  was  a  man  of  great  ability,  and, 
even  in  the  early  sixties,  of  known  distinction.  He 
was  educated  at  University  College,  London,  and  took 
his  degree  there.  He  was  called  to  the  Bar  at  the  Inner 
Temple,  but  never  did  much  work  in  the  courts  of  law, 
and  gave  himself  up  to  that  political  career  for  which 
he  had  unquestionably  very  high  qualifications.  He 
was  elected  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  April,  1859, 
as  one  of  the  representatives  of  Halifax,  and  entered 
Parliament  as  an  advanced  Liberal — very  advanced, 
indeed,  for  those  days.  He  soon  proved  that  he  pos- 
sessed remarkable  capacity  as  a  debater  and  even  orator, 
and  one  of  his  first  speeches  received  a  tribute  of  praise 
from  Disraeli,  who,  to  do  him  justice,  was  always  ready 
to  give  a  word  of  encouragement  to  rising  talent. 

There  were  undoubtedly  in  Stansfeld  qualities 
215 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

which  promised  to  win  for  him  a  higher  position  than 
that  of  a  mere  debater,  however  ready  and  capable. 
He  had  a  gift  of  genuine  eloquence,  a  thrilling  voice, 
and  a  most  impressive  delivery.  He  was  one  of  the 
men  who  seemed  to  me  to  have  all  the  promise  of  great 
oratory,  but  who  somehow  never  succeeded  in  achieving 
a  place  among  orators  of  the  highest  rank.  He  had  the 
imaginative  power  which  is  usually  understood  to  be 
the  one  quality  needed  to  make  a  man  an  orator,  and 
not  merely  an  effective  parliamentary  debater.  Yet 
when  we  think  of  the  orators  of  those  days  we 
think  of  Gladstone  and  Bright,  of  Lord  Derby  and 
Disraeli;  we  do  not  think  of  Stansfeld.  This  kind  of 
negative  judgment  must,  I  suppose,  be  taken  as  de- 
cisive, but  I  have  listened  to  many  speeches  of  Stans- 
feld's  which  filled  me  with  the  conviction  that  I  was 
listening  to  a  real  orator.  Stansfeld  had  always  been 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  liberty  everywhere,  and  he  was 
especially  devoted  to  the  cause  of  Italian  freedom.  He 
was  a  man  who  threw  his  whole  soul  into  every  move- 
ment which  won  his  support,  and  he  had  been  a  cham- 
pion of  Italy's  freedom  long  before  the  time  when  Louis 
Napoleon,  as  Emperor  of  the  French,  struck  the  first 
blow  for  the  emancipation  of  northern  Italy  from 
Austrian  rule. 

Stansfeld  was  a  close  personal  friend  of  Mazzini, 
and  it  was  this  friendship  which  brought  on  him  the 
trouble  I  have  already  mentioned.  In  1863  Lord 
Palmerston,  who  recognized  his  distinct  political  ca- 
pacity and  had  some  sympathy  with  his  views  on  Con- 
tinental politics,  gave  him  a  place  in  the  administration 
as  one  of  the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty.  Soon  after 
Stansfeld's  acceptance  of  office  the  French  government 
discovered  a  plot  against  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Louis 
Napoleon,  and  professed  to  have  discovered  also  that 

216 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

Mazzini  was  one  of  the  conspirators  engaged  in  the  plot. 
There  can  be  no  possible  doubt  that  Mazzini  was  con- 
cerned in  many  conspiracies,  as  they  would  have  been 
called,  against  the  despotism  of  foreign  rulers  in  his 
native  country,  but  I  have  never  seen  any  reason  to 
believe  that  he  was  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  against 
the  life  of  a  man,  even  though  that  man  might  happen 
to  be  a  despotic  ruler.  It  is  perfectly  certain  that  there 
were  Italians,  of  otherwise  good  repute,  who  lent  them- 
selves to  such  enterprises,  and  the  common  opinion  of 
the  despotic  courts  of  Europe  was  that  Mazzini's  in- 
fluence was  the  inspiring  force  of  all  these  schemes. 
The  French  government  discovered,  what  was  already 
well  known  to  every  one  in  England  who  took  any 
interest  in  the  subject,  that  Mazzini  was  one  of  Stans- 
feld's  close  friends,  and  that  at  Stansfeld's  London 
house  he  was  allowed  to  receive  letters  addressed  to 
him  under  a  feigned  name. 

The  English  public  in  general  has  long  since  for- 
gotten the  scandal  created  before  the  early  sixties  by 
the  discovery  that  letters  addressed  to  Mazzini  had  been 
opened  in  their  passage  through  English  post-offices, 
a  practice  which  called  forth  many  strong  expressions 
of  indignation  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  received 
the  stern  condemnation  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  I  only 
refer  to  this  old  story  now  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
that  it  was  not  unreasonable  for  Mazzini  to  use  a  fic- 
titious address  when  letters  were  to  reach  him  through 
an  English  post-office,  or  for  his  English  friends  to  help 
him  in  carrying  out  these  measures  of  precaution. 
When  an  English  postmaster-general,  a  man  of  the 
political  position  and  importance  of  Sir  James  Graham, 
could  have  defended  and  justified  the  official  opening 
of  letters  addressed  to  exiles  from  foreign  states,  it  was 
but  natural  that  James  Stansfeld  should  do  his  best 

217 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

to  protect  his  friend  Mazzini  against  a  renewal  of  the 
practice  under  another  postmaster-general.  It  is,  how- 
ever, certain  that  the  French  government's  professed 
discovery  of  Mazzini's  complicity  in  the  plots  against 
the  emperor's  life  created  much  excitement  and  alarm 
in  England.  There  were  two  schools  of  public  opinion 
in  England  at  that  time  with  regard  to  Mazzini  and 
the  Italian  national  cause.  The  men  of  the  old  school 
made  it  part  of  their  creed  to  regard  all  Italian  patriots 
as  wild  revolutionaries  and  assassins;  the  men  of  the 
new  school  were  prepared  to  acclaim  every  Italian  con- 
spirator as  an  ideal  patriot  and  hero.  Under  these 
conditions  it  was  natural  that  the  politicians  of  the  old 
school  should  seize  with  delight  the  opportunity  of 
assailing  Lord  Palmerston's  government  on  the  ground 
that  one  of  its  members  was  actually  engaged  in  help- 
ing that  apostle  of  anarchy,  Mazzini,  to  carry  out  his 
plots  for  the  assassination  of  sovereigns.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  was  not  a  man  to  feel  much  alarm  by  such  indica- 
tions of  trouble,  but  Stansfeld  made  up  his  mind  that 
he  had  no  right  to  subject  the  administration  to  any 
disturbance  or  annoyance  because  of  his  personal  as- 
sociation with  the  leaders  of  the  great  Italian  move- 
ment for  national  independence.  He  resigned  his  office 
in  the  government,  acting  in  this  instance  on  the  same 
principles  which  always  guided  his  political  and  private 
career.  He  made  it  clear  to  all  reasonable  listeners  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  all  reasonable  observers 
outside  it,  that  he  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
movements  abroad  or  at  home  of  which  a  high-minded 
Englishman  could  have  cause  to  feel  ashamed,  and  he 
vindicated  with  full  effect  the  character  of  his  friend 
Mazzini  from  the  imputations  the  French  government 
had  endeavored  to  cast  upon  it.  The  whole  incident 
only  left  on  the  public  mind  of  England  a  higher 

218 


GIUSEPPE   MAZZINI 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

estimate  than  ever  of  Stansfeld's  sincerity,  his  honor, 
and  his  readiness  to  make  personal  sacrifice  for  any 
cause  which  commanded  his  sympathy. 

The  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  marked 
by  a  curious  episode  which  created  much  amusement 
and  some  bewilderment  at  the  time,  and  will  always 
have  interest  for  the  students  of  political  biography. 
Disraeli  became  quite  unexpectedly  the  principal  figure 
in  this  new  chapter  of  the  story.  Disraeli  spoke  in 
the  debate  and  condemned  Stansfeld  for  the  avowal  of 
his  personal  friendship  with  Mazzini  and  his  defence 
of  Mazzini's  character.  He  was  not  even  content  with 
that  condemnation,  but  took  the  pains  to  remind  the 
House  of  evidence  which  had  been  given  long  before 
in  support  of  the  belief  that  Mazzini  had  encouraged 
and  personally  advocated  the  doctrine  of  tyrannicide. 
The  sole  evidence  of  this  was  that  of  an  Italian  journal- 
ist and  politician,  then  well  known  but  now  quite  for- 
gotten, who  had  published  a  statement  to  the  effect  that 
when  he  was  a  very  young  man  of  wild  revolutionary 
ideas  Mazzini  had  approved  of  some  suggestion  for  a 
plan  to  take  the  life  of  Charles  Albert,  King  of  Sar- 
dinia, who  was  regarded  as  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
Italy's  liberation.  The  House  was  not  greatly  im- 
pressed by  the  value  of  this  evidence,  and  the  whole 
affair  might  soon  have  passed  into  forgetfulness  but 
for  the  intervention  of  John  Bright.  Bright's  object 
was  to  call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  vagueness 
and  insubstantiality  of  the  charge  made  against  Mazzini, 
and  more  especially  to  the  fact  that  Stansfeld  could 
well  be  excused  if  he  had  not  been  much  impressed 
by  a  story  told  on  such  authority  and  constructed  from 
the  memories  of  so  distant  a  time.  This  came  with 
a  better  effect  from  a  man  like  Bright,  whose  profound, 
conscientious  convictions  were  recognized  and  ad- 

219 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

mitted  by  his  most  extreme  political  opponents,  who 
was  well  known  to  have  no  sympathy  with  revolutionary 
plottings  and  but  little  interest  in  the  struggle  for 
Italian  independence.  But  Bright  had  something  more 
to  say  which  gave  an  unexpected  piquancy  to  the  debate 
and  freshened  it  with  a  new  personal  element.  He 
went  on  to  tell  the  House  in  his  most  placid  tones  of 
good-humor  that  nothing  was  more  common  with  a  cer- 
tain class  of  rhapsodical  young  writers  than  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  tyrannicide.  Then,  to  the  amuse- 
ment of  his  listeners,  Bright  asked  whether  the  right 
honorable  gentleman,  Mr.  Disraeli,  had  not  in  his  earlier 
days  been  the  exponent  of  that  doctrine.  Disraeli  shook 
his  head  in  angry  and  scornful  denial,  and  his  friends 
cheered  him  lustily  and  called  upon  Bright  to  with- 
draw his  accusation.  Bright  then  asked  whether  hon- 
orable members  had  ever  read  or  heard  of  a  poem 
written  by  Disraeli  nearly  thirty  years  before,  called 
"  The  Revolutionary  Epick,"  in  which  occurred  some 
impassioned  lines  vindicating  man's  right  to  slay  an  op- 
pressive tyrant.  This  brought  Disraeli  to  his  feet, 
and  in  tones  of  some  excitement  he  denied  that  those 
lines  or  any  lines  which  could  possibly  be  interpreted 
into  the  expression  of  such  a  sentiment  could  be  found 
in  that  youthful  poem  which  the  world  had  willingly 
allowed  to  die.  The  moment  Disraeli  had  resumed  his 
seat  Bright  arose  and  assured  the  House  that  he  readily 
accepted  Disraeli's  disavowal.  He  explained  that  he 
had  never  read  or  seen  the  poem  himself,  but  that  it 
had  been  positively  affirmed,  on  what  he  believed  to  be 
good  authority,  that  "  The  Revolutionary  Epick  "  did 
contain  such  a  passage.  He  offered  Disraeli  the  fullest 
apology  for  the  charge  he  had  been  led  to  make. 

There  the  matter  ended  so  far  as  the  debate  in  the 
House  of  Commons  was  concerned,  but  the  public  had 

220 


ITALY'S   ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

not  heard  the  last  of  the  story.  Who  brought  it  up 
again  to  the  attention  of  the  world  ?  Only  Mr.  Disraeli 
himself.  The  author  of  "  The  Revolutionary  Epick  " 
appears  to  have  felt  so  deeply  the  injustice  of  the  charge 
that  he  determined  to  republish  the  forgotten  poem  in 
order  that  its  text  might  prove  that  no  words  of  his  had 
ever  vindicated  tyrannicide.  The  new  edition  was  dedi- 
cated to  the  author's  friend,  Lord  Stanley.  So  far  Dis- 
raeli would  appear  to  have  vindicated  himself  com- 
pletely and  to  have  rendered  an  additional  service  to 
the  public  by  supplying  it  with  a  new  edition  of  a  poem 
which  had  now  for  the  first  time  become  the  subject  of 
public  discussion  and  of  which  the  earlier  edition  had 
passed  out  of  print.  It  then  turned  out,  to  the  further 
amazement  of  the  public,  that  the  new  edition  of  "  The 
Revolutionary  Epick  "  was  not  a  complete  reproduction 
of  the  first  edition  and  that  the  first  edition  did  contain 
certain  words  amply  justifying  Mr.  Bright's  statement. 
In  the  first  edition  there  was  a  somewhat  magniloquent 
passage  about  the  glory  and  freedom  of  classic  Rome, 
and  in  this  passage  two  lines  declared  that : 

"  The  bold  Brutus  but  propelled  the  Mow 
Her  own  and  nature's  laws  alike  approved." 

Here  was,  beyond  all  question,  something  distinctly 
resembling  a  justification  of  tyrannicide.  But  no  such 
lines  appeared  in  the  new  edition,  published  by  its  au- 
thor with  the  proclaimed  purpose  of  proving  that  he  had 
never  deserved  the  accusation.  How  was  this?  Dis- 
raeli said  in  his  preface  to  the  new  edition  that  it  was 
printed  from  the  only  copy  in  his  possession,  "  which 
with  slight  exceptions  was  corrected  in  1837,  when  after 
three  years'  reflection  I  had  resolved  not  only  to  correct 
but  to  complete  the  work."  He  added,  "  the  corrections 

221 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

are  purely  literary."  It  would  be  impossible,  when  we 
consider  that  the  sole  occasion  for  the  new  edition  was 
the  controversy  about  tyrannicide,  to  believe  that  Mr. 
Disraeli  regarded  the  omission  of  the  lines  about  the 
bold  Brutus  as  a  purely  literary  correction.  We  can 
all  understand  that  these  lines  were  left  out  when  the 
amended  edition  appeared  in  1837,  and  that  as  Disraeli 
had  only  that  version  in  his  library  when  he  started  the 
final  edition  he  may  have  forgotten  all  about  the  bold 
Brutus  and  the  blow  which  nature's  law  approved.  But 
it  seems  rather  surprising  that  he  should  not  have  taken 
the  pains  to  refresh  his  memory  by  looking  up  the  first 
edition  and  satisfying  himself  that  it  contained  no  ob- 
jectionable passage.  The  original  edition  had  disap- 
peared altogether  from  book-shops  and  even  book-stalls. 
Some  few  copies  remained  in  the  hands  of  private  pos- 
sessors, one  of  whom,  I  believe,  had  supplied  Bright 
with  the  information  on  which  he  based  his  speech,  and 
there  were  also,  according  to  regulation,  one  or  two  copies 
in  the  British  Museum  which  were  eagerly  sought  after 
during  many  days  by  curious  inquirers.  No  doubt  Dis- 
raeli had  forgotten  the  lines  in  the  first  edition,  but  the 
whole  world  fell  to  wondering  why,  before  issuing  a  new 
edition  to  prove  that  he  had  not  uttered  certain  senti- 
ments, he  did  not  visit  the  British  Museum,  get  hold  of 
the  original  version,  and  see  whether  it  did  or  did  not 
contain  the  lines  which  made  the  subject  of  the  contro- 
versy. Such  an  unlucky  piece  of  forgetfulness  might 
have  injured  the  reputation  of  another  public  man,  but 
no  one  ever  seemed  to  take  Disraeli  quite  seriously  or 
to  hold  him  responsible  for  freaks  of  memory  or  casual 
inaccuracies  of  narrative. 

During  the  debate  on  Stansfeld's  connection  with 
Mazzini,  Gladstone  uttered  a  sentence  which  I  remem- 
ber impressed  me  deeply  at  the  time.  Gladstone  was 

222 


ITALY'S   ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

repudiating  earnestly  the  imputations  made  against 
Stansfeld  and  against  Mazzini,  and  in  the  course  of  his 
speech  he  said  with  emphasis,  "  Mr.  Speaker,  I  never 
saw  Signer  Mazzini."  Gladstone's  purpose  in  making 
this  statement  was  merely  to  show  that  he  was  not  influ- 
enced by  any  feeling  of  personal  friendship  to  Mazzini, 
but  the  statement  impressed  me  in  a  different  way.  I 
knew  that  Mazzini  had  spent  a  large  part  of  his  exiled 
life  in  London.  I  knew  that  he  had  lived  there  as  a 
poor  man  and  had  all  the  time  endeavored  to  render 
whatever  assistance  he  could  to  his  yet  poorer  country- 
men in  the  lowliest  parts  of  the  English  metropolis. 
During  all  that  time  Gladstone  had  been  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  among  the  English  friends  and  cham- 
pions of  Italian  liberty,  and  yet  it  was  plain  that  Maz- 
zini had  not  tried  to  win  Gladstone's  favor  or  even  to 
make  his  acquaintance,  had  never  put  himself  in  Glad- 
stone's way,  nor  sought  any  benefit  at  his  hands.  This 
was  a  new  evidence  added  to  many  other  evidences  I  had 
already  received  of  Mazzini's  modest  and  retiring  ways 
where  his  own  personality  was  concerned,  and  of  the 
unselfish  deyotion  with  which  he  gave  himself  abso- 
lutely up  to  the  cause  of  his  country.  There  were  many 
passages  of  Mazzini's  public  career  which  one  could  not 
but  regret  and  condemn,  and  one  was  sometimes  forced 
into  a  sort  of  hostile  mood  by  the  extravagance  of  en- 
thusiasm with  which  many  of  Mazzini's  English  wor- 
shippers followed  his  sayings  and  doings  at  that  time, 
but  everything  I  knew  or  heard  concerning  Mazzini 
only  bore  additional  testimony  to  the  unselfishness,  the 
purity,  and  the  truthfulness  of  his  character. 

At  the  time  of  the  Stansfeld  controversy  it  was  openly 
asserted  by  some  speakers  and  writers  that  Mazzini 
was  concerned  with  Orsini  in  the  attempt  made  to 
assassinate  the  Emperor  of  the  French  in  the  Rue  Le- 

223 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

pelletier,  Paris,  in  January,  1858.  Apart  from  my 
personal  conviction  that  Mazzini  was  utterly  incapable 
of  sanctioning  such  a  scheme,  I  had  reasons  of  a  more 
particular  kind  for  disbelieving  the  assertion.  Not 
long  before  the  attempt  made  on  the  life  of  Louis  Na- 
poleon, Orsini,  a  political  convict  who  had  escaped  from 
an  Austrian  prison,  came  over  to  Liverpool,  where  I  was 
living,  and  delivered  lectures  there.  He  was  then  known 
only  as  an  Italian  patriot  who  had  been  sentenced  to 
imprisonment  because  he  strove  for  his  country's  in- 
dependence; he  had  always  borne  a  high  personal 
character,  and  nobody  in  England  could  have  supposed 
him  likely  to  take  a  part  in  schemes  for  assassina- 
tion. He  met  with  a  cordial  reception  in  Liverpool  and 
made  many  personal  friends  there  among  all  political 
parties,  and  I  had  several  opportunities  of  meeting  and 
talking  with  him.  We  spoke  more  than  once  of  Mazzini, 
and  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  Orsini  expressed  him- 
self in  terms  of  dislike  and  almost  of  disdain  concern- 
ing the  man  whom  we  all  then  regarded  as  the  leader  of 
the  movement  for  Italian  independence.  So  far  as  I 
could  understand  Orsini's  objection  to  Mazzini  it  was 
that  Mazzini  was  too  scrupulous  and  too  timid  in  his 
policy,  that  he  shrank  from  bold  attempts,  and  was 
more  likely  to  mar  than  to  make  any  fresh  and  original 
scheme  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  national  purpose. 
I  could  not  help  thinking  at  the  time,  and  ever  since, 
that  the  reason  Orsini  felt  that  dislike  for  Mazzini  was 
just  because  Mazzini  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
plans  of  tyrannicide,  such  as  the  murderous  attempt 
in  the  Rue  Lepelletier  to  which  his  enemies  professed 
to  believe  he  gave  his  sanction  and  co-operation. 

The  reputation  of  James  Stansfeld  suffered  in  no 
sense  from  the  absurd  attempt  made  to  associate  him 
with  the  evil  doings  of  Italian  conspirators.  He  held 

224 


ITALY'S   ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

many  high  offices  under  liberal  administrations,  and  I 
believe  that  towards  the  close  of  his  political  career  he 
was  offered  a  peerage,  which  he  decisively  refused. 
Stansfeld  had  no  ambition  in  that  way.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  he  was  during  the  course  of  his  life  ever  influ- 
enced by  personal  ambition.  The  noble  disinterested- 
ness of  his  nature  and  his  absolute  devotion  to  great 
principles  made  him,  in  a  certain  sense,  an  unsatis- 
factory member  of  an  administration.  A  man  who 
wants  to  get  on  in  political  life  and  to  rise  from  step  to 
step  in  an  administrative  career  must  be  prepared  to 
make  a  sacrifice,  at  least  a  temporary  sacrifice,  now  and 
then  of  some  cause  to  which  he  has  pledged  himself. 
There  is  a  particular  movement  he  has  long  been  de- 
voted to,  but  which  it  may  not  suit  the  purposes  of  the 
government  he  holds  a  place  in  to  satisfy  by  some  legis- 
lative measure.  If  he  wants  to  get  on  he  must  wait  for 
the  convenience  of  his  leader  and  his  other  powerful 
colleagues  and  must  be  content  to  see  the  measures  he 
specially  desires  to  promote  set  aside  for  session  after 
session,  and  left  perhaps  without  any  hope  of  an  early 
introduction. 

Stansfeld  was  not  a  man  who  could  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  compromise  so  completely  as  to  accept  such 
conditions  of  office.  There  were  three  or  four  great 
public  questions  he  was  especially  interested  in,  and  the 
promotion  of  these  was  of  far  greater  importance  to  him 
than  the  success  of  any  government,  or  than  any  advan- 
tage to  his  own  political  career.  I  know  that  on  one 
occasion  when  Stansfeld  was  offered  a  high  position  in 
a  new  liberal  government  he  made  it  a  condition,  be- 
fore accepting  the  offer,  that  he  should  be  held  quite 
free  to  advocate  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  from  his 
place  on  the  treasury  bench  a  cause  not  then  regarded 
with  much  favor  by  the  leading  men  on  either  side 
«  225 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

of  the  House.  His  position  was  clear.  He  would  sup- 
port every  measure  introduced  by  a  liberal  or  a  con- 
servative government  if  he  believed  it  to  be  for  the 
public  welfare,  but  he  would  not  consent,  for  the  con- 
venience of  an  administration,  to  withhold  his  public 
support  from  any  such  measure.  He  was  not  a  pliable 
man,  and  when  he  had  set  his  heart  on  the  promotion  of 
a  movement  he  could  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  wait  in 
silence  for  an  indefinite  time  until  its  advocacy  might 
find  an  opportunity  acceptable  to  his  political  chief. 
Therefore  he  began  to  be  less  anxious,  as  the  years  went 
on,  to  hold  office,  and  more  inclined  to  devote  himself 
freely  and  unreservedly  to  the  advocacy  of  the  measures 
with  which  his  deepest  convictions  were  associated. 
Men  who  could  not  be  compared  with  him  for  political 
ability,  for  wide  and  varied  reading  and  information,  or 
for  eloquence,  rose  to  higher  political  positions  than  he, 
and  he  looked  on  with  perfect  serenity  and  never  started 
any  opposition  to  a  government  because  it  had  not  given 
him  one  of  its  highest  places.  Yet  in  every  department 
which  had  been  put  in  his  charge  he  had  proved  him- 
self endowed  with  genuine  administrative  capacity,  and 
he  was  beyond  question  one  of  the  most  eloquent 
speakers  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Every  one  who 
knew  him  found  his  society  delightful,  and  all  who 
were  his  friends  must  have  felt  proud  of  his  friendship. 
He  was  modest  and  unassuming  in  manners,  a  lover  of 
literature  and  art,  yet  his  house  was  always  a  centre  of 
intellectual  companionship,  and  his  zeal  for  any  one 
cause  never  made  him  forget  that  other  men  had  other 
causes  also  worthy  of  his  interest.  In  one  sense  at  least 
James  Stansfeld  realized  his  highest  ambition — he  had 
been  able  to  render  invaluable  service  to  every  cause  on 
which  he  had  set  his  heart. 

The  portrait  of  Peter  Alfred  Taylor  comes  in  the 
226 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH   SYMPATHIZERS 

natural  sequence  of  companionship  immediately  after 
that  of  James  Stansfeld.  Peter  Taylor  was  Stansfeld's 
brother-in-law,  was,  like  him,  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  was  associated  with  him  in  all  or  almost 
all  great  public  questions.  He  was  not  endowed  with 
the  brilliant  qualities  of  Stansfeld,  but  he  was  a  thought- 
ful and  a  capable  man  who  might  have  won  a  distin- 
guished position  in  parliamentary  debate  if  he  had  de- 
voted himself  to  the  steady  cultivation  of  such  gifts  as 
he  had  for  public  speaking.  But  I  do  not  think  that 
Taylor  ever  quite  put  his  heart  into  the  business  of 
parliamentary  life,  that  he  enjoyed  the  debates  merely 
as  debates,  or  that  he  would  have  cared  to  spend  his 
days  and  nights  in  the  House  of  Commons  if  it  were  not 
that  he  had  some  measures  of  legislation  especially  at 
heart  to  which  he  felt  compelled  to  devote  his  whole  at- 
tention. He  was  a  good  speaker,  with  a  good  manner, 
and  when  he  addressed  the  House  he  was  always  able 
to  command  the  attention  of  his  more  thoughtful  lis- 
teners. But  he  never  made  success  the  object  of  his 
ambition,  and  he  never  made  a  speech  unless  he  had 
something  to  say  which  he  feared  might  be  left  unsaid, 
or  not  fully  expressed,  if  he  did  not  make  himself  its 
exponent.  Without  any  disparagement  to  the  House  of 
Commons  it  may  be  said  that  this  is  not  exactly  the 
spirit  which  must  actuate  a  man  who  is  ambitious  to 
become  a  successful  debater.  A  member  who  wishes  to 
become  a  leading  debater  must  make  use  of  the  House 
as  his  training-ground,  and  must  bo  prepared  to  culti- 
vate very  often  his  own  faculties  for  debate  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  audience.  Of  course  a  man  endowed  with  a 
gift  of  real  eloquence  can  always  assert  his  position  no 
matter  at  what  rare  intervals  he  chooses  to  address  the 
House,  and  no  matter  how  little  interest  he  may  take 
in  its  ordinary  proceedings.  But  Peter  Taylor  was  not 

227 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

a  man  of  this  order,  and  he  had  not  the  ambition  or  the 
inclination  to  regard  the  House  as  the  training-ground 
for  a  rising  debater.  He  devoted  himself  especially  to 
the  advocacy  of  two  or  three  reforms,  one  of  which  was 
the  abolition  of  flogging  in  the  army  and  navy.  He 
brought  forward  every  session  a  motion  on  these  sub- 
jects. He  was  an  advanced  Liberal,  an  advocate  of  the 
cause  of  liberty  at  home  and  abroad,  and  although  he 
never  really  enjoyed  the  life  of  the  House,  he  never 
absented  himself  from  the  division  lobby  when  a  vote 
had  to  be  taken  which  concerned  a  question  belonging 
to  such  spheres  of  politics.  But  he  was  not  a  man  upon 
whom  the  whips  of  any  party  could  always  safely 
reckon;  he  would  vote  against  a  liberal  government 
just  as  readily  as  against  a  tory  government  if  the 
liberal  leaders  brought  in  a  measure,  large  or  small,  of 
which  he  conscientiously  disapproved. 

Fortunately  for  himself  Peter  Taylor  had  no  par- 
ticular reason  for  desiring  to  be  of  service  to  any  ad- 
ministration. He  had  no  ambition  to  obtain  office  in  a 
ministry,  and  he  was  endowed  with  ample  private 
means.  He  had  during  the  earlier  years  of  my  friend- 
ship with  him  a  delightful  abode  not  far  north  of  the 
park,  but  which  might  have  been  miles  away  from 
London  so  far  as  its  appearance  and  its  immediate  sur- 
roundings were  concerned.  It  was  a  fine  old  mansion, 
which  looked  as  if  it  might  have  been  in  ancient  days 
a  monastic  building  of  some  kind,  and  it  was  surround- 
ed by  an  extent  of  garden  and  shrubbery  like  manorial 
grounds.  Peter  Taylor  and  his  wife,  who  was  a  woman 
of  intellect  and  culture,  loved  above  all  things  to  gather 
around  them  the  society  of  interesting  people  from  all 
parts  of  the  world.  They  used  to  have  frequent  gather- 
ings in  this  delightful  old  home  during  each  London 
season,  and  there  any  one  who  had  the  good  fortune  to 

228 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

be  a  regular  visitor  was  sure  to  meet  with  distinguished 
authors,  artists,  politicians,  teachers  of  science,  and 
philanthropists  from  every  civilized  land.  I  am  not 
likely  ever  to  forget  some  of  the  evenings  I  passed  in 
that  house.  In  later  years  the  house  itself  and  the 
grounds  had  to  yield  to  the  advances  of  what  I  suppose 
we  are  bound  to  regard  as  civilization.  Probably  some 
railway  company  obtained  legislative  authority  to  run 
a  line  through  that  part  of  the  metropolis.  I  do  not 
know  what  actually  happened,  because  the  change  took 
place  during  a  prolonged  stay  of  mine  in  the  United 
States,  but  the  result  was  that  the  house  and  the  grounds 
underwent  a  process  of  transformation,  and  when  I  next 
became  a  visitor  to  the  Taylors  they  were  settled  in  a 
fine  and  spacious  flat  in  the  Victoria  region  of  London. 
The  hospitality  of  the  Taylors  had,  however,  suffered  no 
change,  and  the  same  interesting  and  delightful  gather- 
ings were  to  be  found  in  the  up-to-date  flat  as  we  had 
been  accustomed  to  find  in  the  old-fashioned  and  pictu- 
resque abode.  If  Peter  Taylor  and  his  wife  had  any 
personal  ambition,  it  was  the  ambition  which  certainly 
could  not  be  regarded  as  in  any  sense  mean  or  ignoble, 
to  be  surrounded  by  brilliant  and  eminent  or  at  all 
events  rising  and  promising  men  and  women.  It  was 
always  their  kind  and  generous  way  to  look  out  for 
merit  before  it  had  yet  won  general  recognition,  and  I 
can  call  to  mind  the  names  of  many  men  and  women 
who  have  since  risen  to  fame  in  letters  or  art  or  politics 
who  were  wholly  unknown  to  the  public  at  large  when  I 
first  met  them  under  the  hospitable  roof  of  the  Taylors. 
But  I  feel  bound  to  say  that  the  strongest  ambition  of 
Peter  Taylor  and  his  wife  was  the  ambition  to  render 
substantial  service  to  every  public  movement  which  com- 
manded their  devotion,  and  to  help  all  fellow-creatures 
who  deserved  and  could  benefit  by  their  judicious  and 

229 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

generous  assistance.  Peter  Taylor  made  for  himself  no 
lasting  name  in  parliamentary  or  public  life,  but  I 
think  I  may  fairly  say  of  him  as  I  have  said  of  his 
brother-in-law,  James  Stansfeld,  that  he  realized  his 
highest  ambition  by  rendering  service  to  many  a  great 
cause. 

Another  name  I  associate  with  James  Stansfeld  is 
that  of  Emilie  Ashurst  Venturi,  a  lady  who  was  con- 
nected with  his  family  by  marriage.  Madame  Venturi 
was  an  Englishwoman  by  birth,  daughter  of  Mr.  W. 
H.  Ashurst,  who  belonged  to  an  eminent  firm  of  London 
solicitors.  She  married  an  Italian,  Carlo  Venturi,  a 
Venetian  who  had  left  Italy  because  he  could  not  endure 
the  severity  with  which  the  Austrian  government,  then 
in  dominion  over  his  part  of  Italy,  was  endeavoring 
to  suppress  every  patriotic  effort  for  Italian  unity  and 
independence.  Madame  Venturi  and  her  husband  set- 
tled in  London  after  having  lived  for  some  years  in 
Italy,  working  as  well  as  they  could  for  every  patriotic 
movement.  I  only  knew  her  in  later  years  after  the 
death  of  her  husband.  She  then  had  her  home  in  Car- 
lyle  Square,  Chelsea,  and  she  loved  to  gather  around 
her  all  who  were  in  sympathy  with  her  cause  or  with 
any  cause  in  which  she  took  a  deep  interest.  It  was  a 
pleasure  to  her  also  to  welcome  in  her  house  men  and 
women  who  had  distinguished  themselves,  or  who  seem- 
ed worthy  of  acquiring  distinction  in  art  or  letters  or 
science,  for  she  did  not  limit  her  circle  of  friendships 
to  those  who  worked  in  the  political  field. 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  numbered  among  her 
acquaintances,  and  thus  I  met  many  men  and  women 
who  had  won  for  themselves  eminent  names.  I  remem- 
ber that  it  was  at  her  house  I  first  had  the  honor  of 
meeting  M.  Yves  Guyot,  the  famous  French  journalist, 
author,  and  statesman,  who  held  a  high  place  in  several 

230 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

French  administrations.  Madame  Venturi  was  a 
charming  woman  in  every  sense,  and  the  sincerity  of 
her  nature  showed  itself  transparently  in  her  conver- 
sation as  well  as  in  her  actions  and  her  life.  I  felt  a 
peculiar  sympathy  with  her  because  of  the  deep  and 
earnest  interest  she  always  took  in  the  efforts  of  Irish- 
men to  obtain  for  their  country  a  system  of  government 
which  should  recognize  their  national  claims  for  self- 
rule  in  all  that  related  to  the  domestic  affairs  of  Ire- 
land. She  felt  a  strong  admiration  for  Charles  Stewart 
Parnell,  and  expressed  it  frankly  at  a  time  when  such 
a  sentiment  was  least  likely  to  secure  for  her  the  favor 
or  even  the  toleration  of  that  vague  class  which  we 
are  accustomed  in  England  to  call  "  society."  There 
were  even  then  a  great  many  advanced  English  Lib- 
erals who  could  enter  as  cordially  into  her  feelings 
towards  Ireland  as  towards  Italy  or  Poland.  I  have 
heard  her  say  more  than  once  that  she  regarded  Parnell 
as  a  second  Mazzini.  After  her  death  M.  Yves  Guyot 
paid  an  eloquent  tribute  to  her  disinterested  and  noble 
life.  "  Her  death,"  he  said  in  a  published  letter,  "  car- 
ries away  something  of  myself;  it  is  a  diminution  of 
my  being."  Then  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  In  my  moments 
of  melancholy  and  incertitude  I  will  reread  the  mar- 
vellous letters  which  she  wrote  to  me  so  often,  and  in 
which  she  treated  with  the  independence  which  gave 
them  their  confidential  character  all  contemporary  ques- 
tions and  the  great  problems  of  the  past  and  the  future. 
They  reveal  a  logical  grasp,  a  play  of  fancy,  an  anima- 
tion, a  thrilling  charm  which  make  them  masterpieces 
without  models  in  the  past.  Her  thought  had  the  solid- 
ity, keenness,  and  brilliancy  of  the  diamond." 

Madame  Venturi  was  a  devoted  friend  and  admirer 
of  Mazzini,  many  of  whose  writings  she  translated  into 
English.  She  had  come  to  know  him  in  the  days  of  her 

231 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

girlhood,  when  Mazzini  used  to  be  a  constant  guest 
at  her  father's  house — a  house  which  I  have  heard 
Mazzini  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  his  English  home. 
An  intimate  friend  of  Madame  Venturi  has  lately  been 
kind  enough  to  place  at  my  disposal  a  reminiscence 
which  brings  together  the  names  of  Mazzini  and 
Madame  Venturi,  and  contributes  what  I  believe  will 
be  a  new  idea  to  most  English  students  of  Dante,  and 
even  to  many  of  Dante's  own  compatriots.  Mazzini 
was  a  most  enthusiastic  and  appreciative  admirer  of 
Dante,  about  whom  he  had  written  much,  and  Emilie 
Ashurst  had  followed  him  in  his  studies  of  Italy's  su- 
preme poet.  One  evening  a  discussion  arose  in  Mr. 
Ashurst's  house  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  passage  in 
canto  iii.  of  the  Inferno,  which  describes  Dante  and 
Virgil  passing  through  the  regions  where  abode  the 
souls  of  those  who  had  taken  part  neither  with  God 
nor  with  Satan,  but  had  lived  for  themselves  alone. 
Dante  tells  that  among  these  he  saw  and  recognized 
"  the  shadow  of  him  who  from  cowardice  made  the  great 
refusal."  Many  theories  have  been  maintained  by 
Italian  and  other  scholars  as  to  the  identity  of  this  un- 
happy man.  The  theory  most  generally  accepted  is  that 
he  was  Pope  Celestine  the  Fifth,  who  abdicated  within 
a  year  of  his  election  in  1294,  and  whom  the  poet  was 
supposed  to  have  regarded  with  great  disfavor  because 
of  his  withdrawal  from  the  responsibilities  of  his  posi- 
tion at  a  period  of  great  stress  and  danger.  I  need  not 
enter  into  any  consideration  of  the  other  theories  which 
have  been  raised  and  ingeniously  defended.  The  friend 
who  has  supplied  me  with  some  interesting  facts  in 
Madame  Venturi's  life  tells  me  that  Mazzini  regarded 
none  of  the  explanations  as  quite  satisfactory,  and  that 
he  had  sought  in  vain  for  a  character  in  history  whom 
the  passage  fitted.  Emilie  Ashurst  at  last  ventured 

232 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

on  a  suggestion  of  her  own.  "  I  believe,"  she  said, 
"  that  Dante  means  Pontius  Pilate,  and  there  is  no 
mention  of  him  elsewhere  in  the  poem."  Thereupon 
Mazzini  exclaimed :  "  You  are  right — without  a  doubt 
you  are  right!  I  am  surprised  that  this  has  not  been 
made  clear  before."  Mazzini  became  intensely  inter- 
ested by  this  suggestion,  and  the  more  he  thought  over 
it  the  more  he  became  convinced  that  Emilie  Ashurst 
had  rightly  divined  the  meaning  of  the  passage.  The 
friend  to  whose  kindness  I  am  indebted  for  this  anec- 
dote describes  the  personal  appearance  of  Madame  Ven- 
turi  in  her  younger  days.  "  Not  one  of  her  features, 
except  the  forehead,  could  be  called  beautiful,  but  their 
harmony  irradiated  them  with  a  subtle  beauty  that 
never  waned.  A  wealth  of  hair,  black  in  youth  and 
silvery  white  in  later  years,  was  drawn  back  from  a 
forehead  that  noted  great  intellectual  powers,  and  well- 
marked  eyebrows  lent  additional  character  to  eyes  whose 
direct,  honest,  fearless  gaze  made  a  lasting  impression 
upon  almost  all  with  whom  she  came  in  contact.  Few 
persons  wholly  forgot  Madame  Venturi  even  after  a 
casual  meeting,  for  some  one  of  her  many  gifts  was 
sure  to  show  itself  and  cause  the  stranger  to  feel  that 
he  had  encountered  an  unusual  mind."  I  can  well 
endorse  the  words  of  this  last  sentence.  From  my  first 
meeting  with  Madame  Venturi  I  formed  an  impression 
of  her  which  I  knew  could  not  well  be  effaced,  and 
the  more  often  I  saw  her  the  more  distinctly  I  became 
impressed  by  her  artistic  capabilities,  her  noble  nature, 
her  wide  sympathies,  and  her  force  of  character. 

There  were  many  questions  in  which  Madame  Ven- 
turi showed  a  warm  and  active  interest  concerning 
which  I  was  not  in  full  sympathy  with  her  views,  but 
I  could  none  the  less  recognize  the  force  of  her  argu- 
ments and  admire  her  resolute  purpose.  She  was  one 

233 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

of  the  earliest  advocates  of  woman's  emancipation — in 
this  she  had  my  fullest  concurrence — and  she  advocated 
with  consistency  and  indomitable  perseverance  the 
opening  up,  as  far  as  possible,  of  every  career  to  women. 
She  maintained,  in  fact,  just  the  same  principles  re- 
garding woman's  emancipation  which  were  expressed 
with  such  convincing  force  and  eloquence  by  John 
Stuart  Mill.  Not  even  the  authoress  of  certain  once 
famous  articles  could  seriously  have  contended  that  the 
sweet  and  modest  Madame  Venturi  belonged  to  the 
order  of  "  the  shrieking  sisterhood,"  or  that  her  am- 
bition was  to  induce  women  to  unsex  themselves,  as  the 
phrase  went,  or  to  attempt  any  work  incompatible  with 
the  first  and  most  sacred  duties  of  womanhood.  It 
might  well  be  argued  that  Madame  Venturi  was  herself 
a  perfect  type  of  noblest  womanhood.  It  was  a  high 
privilege  to  know  such  a  woman,  and  her  memory  is 
sure  to  be  a  lasting  and  an  elevating  influence  for  all 
who  had  the  good  fortune  to  come  within  the  sphere 
of  her  guidance  and  her  inspiration. 

Another  portrait  properly  belongs  to  this  group.  It 
is  that  of  Jessie  White  Mario,  an  Englishwoman  who 
married  an  Italian  and  devoted  herself  with  enthu- 
siasm to  the  advocacy  of  the  Italian  cause.  She  had 
a  remarkable  eloquence  and  became  a  regular  lecturer 
on  behalf  of  the  cause.  At  one  time  she  used  to  draw 
large  audiences  in  London  and  in  many  cities  and 
towns  of  Great  Britain.  I  have  a  distinct  recollection 
of  some  lectures  I  heard  her  deliver,  and  I  was  greatly 
impressed  by  her  power  of  expression  and  her  admirable 
elocution.  She  had  the  gift  of  making  the  tones  of  her 
voice  correspond  in  every  word  and  note  with  the  feel- 
ings she  desired  to  express,  and  she  threw  a  certain 
poetic  charm  into  passages  which,  if  spoken  by  another, 
might  have  seemed  but  commonplace  declamation.  I 

234 


' 


ITALY'S    ENGLISH    SYMPATHIZERS 

had  only  a  slight  and  passing  acquaintance  with  her, 
but  she  impressed  me  as  I  have  seldom  been  impressed 
by  any  of  the  women  lecturers,  many,  indeed,  in  num- 
ber, to  whom  I  have  listened  in  this  country  and  the 
United  States.  Her  career  was  especially  characteristic 
of  the  epoch  I  am  now  endeavoring  to  illustrate,  and 
she  is  well  worthy  of  any  tribute  which  can  be  paid  to 
her  by  the  presentation  of  her  portrait  in  this  chapter. 


CHAPTER   XVIH 

STABS    THAT    EOSE    IN    THE    SIXTIES 

THESE  portraits  from  the  sixties  illustrate  hardly 
any  career  more  interesting  and  more  peculiar  than 
that  of  James  Abbott  McNeill  Whistler,  the  artist  and 
art-controversialist  who  first  began  to  exhibit  his  pict- 
ures at  the  Royal  Academy  in  1859  and  settled  in 
London  in  1863.  The  merits  of  Whistler's  pictures 
are  too  well  known,  the  controversies  to  which  they  gave 
rise  are  too  familiar,  and  the  school  he  may  be  said  to 
have  founded  is  still  too  much  of  a  living  influence 
to  require  any  description  from  me.  I  feel  inclined 
rather  to  speak  of  the  man  himself  as  I  knew  him 
than  to  discuss  the  peculiar  qualities  of  his  art.  I  first 
made  his  acquaintance  at  the  house  of  George  Henry 
Boughton,  the  distinguished  painter  and  academician, 
and  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  often  in  his  society 
until  he  ceased  to  be  a  resident  of  London.  Whistler 
was  an  American  by  birth;  he  was  born  at  Lowell, 
Massachusetts,  but  he  soon  made  himself  a  citizen  of 
the  world,  and  was  as  well  known  personally  in  Paris 
and  London  as  in  his  native  land.  While  studying  art 
in  Paris  he  was  a  companion  of  George  du  Maurier, 
who  long  afterwards  gave  some  highly  amusing  pict- 
ures or  caricatures  of  him  in  Trilby. 

Whistler  was  a  controversialist  by  nature  both  in 
public  and  in  private,  and  he  never  got  hold  of  a  new 
idea  in  art  or  letters  which  he  did  not  succeed  in  turn- 

236 


STARS    THAT    ROSE    IN    THE    SIXTIES 

ing  into  a  subject  of  keen  controversy.  He  was  a  humor- 
ist and  a  wit,  and  had  the  readiest  and  happiest  gift 
of  artistic  phrase-making.  He  was  not  content  to  paint 
a  picture  according  to  his  own  principle  of  art,  but 
he  must  also  endeavor  to  found  a  school  for  the  propa- 
gation of  that  principle  which  he  believed  to  be  initiated 
and  illustrated  by  his  style  of  painting.  I  have  said 
that  he  was  a  humorist,  but  I  cannot  help  remembering 
that  Thackeray  defined  humor  as  the  union  of  love  and 
wit,  and  Whistler  was  certainly  somewhat  too  acrid 
to  be  a  master  of  humor  in  that  genial  sense.  Never- 
theless I  believe  that  many  even  of  his  sharpest  sayings 
had  in  them  much  of  the  quality  of  humor  as  well  as 
of  mere  wit.  Some  of  them  became  almost  proverbial, 
and  passed  into  the  ordinary  conversation  of  society, 
where  they  were  often  quoted  by  men  and  women  who 
had  no  clear  recollection  as  to  the  source  from  which 
they  came.  He  soon  formed  around  him  in  London 
a  whole  school  of  artistic  admirers,  men  and  women, 
the  essential  article  of  whose  faith  was  not  merely  that 
Whistler  was  a  true  artist,  not  merely  that  he  was  a 
great  artist,  but  that  he  was  the  first  and  only  true  and 
great  artist  who  had  ever  condescended  to  teach  poor 
humanity  how  to  reproduce  atmosphere  and  color,  light 
and  shadow,  form  and  substance  on  canvas  or  paper. 
I  think  Whistler  himself  was  often  amused  by  their 
extravagance  of  praise,  but  he  certainly  encouraged  it, 
perhaps  for  the  fun  of  the  thing. 

Whistler's  "  Ten  o'Clock  Lecture  "  was  at  one  time 
a  recognized  institution  in  all  that  part  of  society 
which  professed  to  make  art  one  of  its  cherished  fash- 
ions. The  "  Ten  o'Clock  Lecture "  was  a  discourse 
given  by  Whistler  on  some  subject  which  just  then  hap- 
pened to  command  his  attention,  and  he  appointed  the 
ten  o'clock  hour  as  a  time  suitable  to  the  dining  ar- 

237 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

rangements  of  the  fashionable  public.  Each  lecture 
was  an  exposition  by  Whistler  of  his  own  theories, 
creeds,  or  paradoxes,  spoken  in  his  crisp  and  sparkling 
style,  and  gave  the  listener  the  impression  sometimes 
that  Whistler  was  merely  thinking  aloud  for  the  relief 
of  his  own  mind,  and  sometimes  that  he  was  propound- 
ing puzzles  for  the  bewilderment  of  his  audience.  But 
all  of  them  had  the  peculiarity  that  they  held  with 
absolute  command  the  attention  of  the  listener,  whether 
he  knew  what  the  lecturer  was  talking  about  or  was 
trying  to  discover  what  the  lecturer  believed  himself 
to  be  talking  about.  One  never  knew  what  stroke  of 
brilliant  audacity  might  be  coming  next,  what  be- 
wildering paradox  was  to  be  so  set  forth  as  to  pass  for 
some  profound  and  eternal  doctrine  in  art.  Whistler's 
manner  was  admirably  suited  to  his  purpose;  every 
sentence  of  the  lecture  seemed  as  if  it  were  spoken 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
quaint  originality  of  many  phrases  and  the  fantasy 
of  the  startling  conceits  set  one  wondering  how  long  it 
must  have  taken  any  man  to  arrange,  in  seeming  se- 
quence, such  oddities  of  conception.  The  London 
lecture  was  delivered  publicly  at  Princes  Hall,  but  was 
also  given  in  some  private  houses  whose  owners  were 
fortunate  enough  to  prevail  upon  Whistler  to  become 
for  the  occasion  the  instructor  of  a  limited  audience. 
I  remember  that  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  listen  to 
Whistler  more  than  once  under  the  roof  of  a  genial 
hostess.  He  was  always  getting  into  some  controversy 
or  other,  and  there  were  even  occasions  when  these  con- 
troversies had  to  engage  the  attention  of  a  court  of 
civil  law.  His  book,  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  En- 
emies, was  one  of  the  London  sensations  of  a  season, 
was  remembered,  quoted  from,  and  discussed  for  many 
a  succeeding  season,  and  is  not  likely  to  pass  into 

238 


STARS    THAT    ROSE    IN    THE    SIXTIES 

oblivion  for  a  long  time  yet  to  come.  He  used  to 
have  frequent  breakfast-parties  at  his  own  home,  and 
to  have  a  standing  invitation  to  them  was  in  itself 
enough  to  confer  a  certain  distinction  on  the  favored 
mortal  whom  Whistler  thus  recognized  as  belonging 
to  his  select  circle  of  friends.  One  thing  the  favored 
guest  might  safely  count  upon — he  was  sure  not  to 
meet  a  nonentity  or  even  an  uninteresting  personage  at 
any  of  these  gatherings.  Despite  his  Gentle  Art  of 
Making  Enemies,  Whistler  always  seemed  to  me  a  man 
of  kindly  disposition  and  a  good  friend  to  his  friend, 
although  it  must  be  owned  that  he  was  rather  a  bitter 
enemy  to  one  who  made  himself  his  enemy. 

Whistler  had  some  years  ago  a  personal  quarrel  with 
a  rising  painter,  a  man  younger  than  he,  who  had  been 
at  one  period  of  his  artistic  career  a  devotee  of  his  and 
one  of  his  recognized  followers.  I  never  made  thorough 
investigation  into  the  merits  of  the  quarrel,  but  I  had 
a  very  friendly  feeling  for  the  younger  artist,  as  well 
as  for  the  elder,  and  when  an  opportunity  arose  I 
endeavored  to  bring  about  an  amicable  settlement  of 
the  quarrel.  I  tried  to  arrange  for  a  meeting  between 
the  two  separated  friends,  but  without  success.  To 
explain  what  followed  I  must  say  that  the  world  was 
then  profoundly  interested  in  the  fate  of  Father 
Damien,  who  had  lost  his  life  in  endeavoring  to  miti- 
gate the  sufferings  of  the  victims  in  one  of  the  southern 
islands  where  leprosy  was  doing  deadly  work.  Some 
time  after  I  happened  to  meet  Whistler,  and  expressed 
a  hope  that  he  cherished  no  unfriendly  feeling  to  me 
because  of  my  attempt  at  pacific  intervention.  He 
smiled  a  cordial  smile  and  shook  my  hand,  assuring 
me  that  he  had  not  misunderstood  me  in  the  least,  and 
then  he  added,  "  I  know  you  meant  it  well  and  I  am 
sure  you  have  courage  enough,  but  remember  that 

239 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Damien  died  of  it."  I  need  not  explain  this  fiercely 
ironical  comparison  between  the  labors  of  Father 
Damien  and  my  efforts  to  help  my  absent  friend.  I 
shall  only  say  that  there  was  a  look  of  quiet  benignity 
on  Whistler's  face  as  he  spoke  the  words  which  lent 
an  additional  drollery  to  their  application. 

I  have  heard  Whistler  say  many  bright  ill-natured 
things  which  were  not  so  ill-natured  as  this.  One  day 
I  met  him  at  luncheon  at  a  private  house  where  among 
the  guests  was  a  rising  literary  celebrity  who  went 
in  for  saying  clever  things,  and  was  believed  by  some 
of  his  critics  to  be  not  always  quite  original  in  his 
quips  and  cranks  and  paradoxes.  This  man  sat  at  the 
other  end  of  the  table  from  Whistler,  and  Whistler 
let  off  some  brilliant  saying  which  was  only  heard  by 
those  in  his  immediate  neighborhood.  The  rising 
celebrity  at  the  other  end  of  the  table  was  attracted 
by  our  laughter,  and  expressed  a  wish  to  know  what 
good  thing  Whistler  had  said.  The  jest  was  repeated 
for  his  benefit,  and  then  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  ad- 
miration he  called  out  to  Whistler,  "  Oh,  Jimmy  " — 
it  was  thus  that  Whistler's  admirers  and  friends  com- 
monly addressed  him  —  "I  wish  I  had  said  that." 
"  !N"ever  mind,  my  dear  fellow,"  Whistler  blandly  re- 
plied, "  you  will."  I  have  no  doubt  that  his  prediction 
was  fully  verified. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  regard  Whistler  merely 
as  the  comet  of  a  season  or  of  many  seasons,  because 
he  was  undoubtedly  an  artist  of  great  and  original 
power  who  did  work  that  in  its  way  is  never  likely 
to  be  surpassed.  But  he  flashed  upon  London  society, 
if  not  upon  English  art,  with  a  comet-like  suddenness 
which  seemed  to  foretell  an  equally  sudden  disappear- 
ance. He  aroused,  too,  very  much  of  the  feeling  of 
surprise  and  bewilderment  occasioned  by  the  unexpected 

240 


STARS   THAT    ROSE   IN    THE    SIXTIES 

flashing  of  a  comet  on  the  horizon.  Moreover,  he  had 
a  way  of  withdrawing  from  London  and  betaking  him- 
self to  Paris  or  New  York  or  some  other  foreign  capital 
with  a  suddenness  which  set  his  London  admirers  won- 
dering whether  they  were  ever  to  see  him  again.  Dur- 
ing my  latest  visit  to  New  York,  now  a  good  many  years 
ago,  I  was  once  in  a  company  where  a  young  literary 
man  from  London  made  himself  the  hero  of  the  hour 
by  announcing  that  he  had  seen  Whistler  that  very  day 
on  Broadway.  I  knew  that  he  must  be  mistaken,  for 
I  had  just  heard  from  London  that  Whistler  was  still 
there,  and  all  his  friends  knew  him  to  be  engaged 
in  work  which  must  keep  him  there  for  a  long  time. 
I  expressed  my  conviction  and  explained  my  reasons 
for  entertaining  it,  but  one  of  the  company  promptly 
said,  "  I  dare  say  our  friend  here  is  quite  right,  for  the 
very  fact  that  Whistler  had  made  up  his  mind  to  re- 
main much  longer  in  London  is  the  best  possible  reason 
for  our  expecting  to  see  him  now  in  New  York."  As 
it  turned  out  my  London  friend  was  mistaken,  and 
Whistler  was  certainly  then  in  London,  but  the  com- 
ment made  on  the  odd  promptitude  of  his  unexpected 
movements  was  an  appropriate  tribute  to  the  reputation 
for  eccentric  goings  and  comings  which  the  "  master  " 
had  acquired. 

My  last  meeting  with  Whistler  was  in  Paris  some 
years  ago.  He  had  settled  at  that  time  once  again 
in  the  French  capital,  and  I  believe  that  he  stayed 
there  for  the  most  part  until  shortly  before  his  death. 
I  have  always  thought  it  a  fitting  and  appropriate  fact 
in  our  friendship  that  I  should  have  met  him  for  the 
first  time  in  London,  and  have  seen  him  for  the  last 
time  in  Paris.  In  London  and  in  Paris  were  to  be 
found  his  most  admiring  and  devoted  followers;  in 
London  and  in  Paris  the  best  of  his  work  was  done, 
w  241 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

In  his  own  native  country  the  light  of  his  fame  burns 
as  brightly  as  in  any  other  land,  but  somehow  we  do 
not  associate  his  paintings  and  writings,  his  artistic 
theories  and  controversies,  his  humors  and  paradoxes, 
his  social  successes  and  newspaper  popularity  with  any 
city  of  the  United  States  as  we  do  with  London  and 
Paris.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  I  were  again  to  settle 
down  to  literary  and  artistic  society  in  London,  I  should 
think  the  life  there  not  quite  the  same  now  that  it 
wants  the  fascinating,  fantastic  presence  of  James 
Whistler. 

The  portrait  of  Edward  Sothern  appears  to  have  its 
appropriate  place  in  this  chapter.  Sothern  was  an 
Englishman  by  birth.  He  was  born  in  Liverpool,  and 
in  his  early  years  his  gifts  as  a  comedian  began  to  show, 
and  he  played  for  some  two  or  three  years  in  English 
provincial  theatres.  He  then  went  to  the  United 
States,  where  he  began  to  acquire  a  reputation,  and 
made  a  full  success  when  he  acted  the  part  of  Lord 
Dundreary  in  Tom  Taylor's  comedy  "  Our  American 
Cousin."  When  he  came  to  England  in  1861  and  the 
play  was  brought  out  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre,  Soth- 
ern's  renown  was  entirely  that  of  a  great  success  ac- 
complished in  the  United  States.  From  his  first  per- 
formance at  the  Haymarket  he  was  recognized  at  once 
as  a  really  great  comedian.  "  Our  American  Cousin  " 
became  the  talk  of  the  metropolis;  ran  for  more  than 
four  hundred  nights  at  the  Haymarket,  and  its  success 
depended  altogether^ on  his  performance  of  Lord  Dun- 
dreary. Sothern  seemed  to  Londoners  almost  as  much 
of  a  foreigner  as  Whistler,  and  I  think,  therefore,  that 
his  portrait  finds  a  fitting  place  in  its  present  associa- 
tion. The  play  itself  has  no  essential  value  as  a  comedy, 
but  the  extraordinary  performance  of  Lord  Dundreary 
by  Sothern  held  us  all  willing  captives.  The  character 

242 


STARS    THAT    ROSE   IN    THE   SIXTIES 

of  Lord  Dundreary  would  have  been  in  the  hands  of 
any  other  actor  an  absurd  burlesque  of  the  English 
"  milor,"  as  he  was  at  that  time  commonly  pictured  in 
French  comedies  and  French  newspapers.  Sothern  suc- 
ceeded in  making  him  seem  a  living  possibility,  and  the 
London  world  went  wild  with  delight  over  the  grotesque 
absurdities  of  Dundreary.  In  fact,  we  thought  nothing 
of  the  absurdities  and  the  impossibilities;  we  did  not 
stop  to  ask  ourselves  how  any  Englishman,  noble  or 
plebeian,  could  have  talked  and  behaved  after  the  fash- 
ion of  Dundreary.  We  only  felt  that  we  had  before  us 
an  actor  who  could  make  us  believe  in  anything  he  said 
and  did,  and  who,  by  the  mere  force  of  his  genius,  con- 
verted Dundreary  into  a  living  and  fascinating  reality. 
The  story  went  at  the  time,  and  I  believe  there  was 
truth  in  it,  that  Sothern  had  first  appeared  in  the  part 
while  he  belonged  to  an  American  company  of  which 
Joseph  Jefferson,  the  creator  of  Rip  Van  Winkle,  was 
the  chief  actor,  and  that  it  was  Jefferson  who  first 
discovered  Sothern's  genius  and  gave  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  turning  it  to  immediate  account.  In  the  play 
as  originally  produced  the  part  of  Lord  Dundreary  was 
very  small  and  quite  insignificant,  but  Jefferson,  who 
was  playing  what  was  then  a  much  more  important  part, 
encouraged  Sothern  to  amplify  it  by  new  speeches  and 
fresh  humors,  and  under  his  inspiration  Sothern  made 
it  the  great  figure  of  the  play  and  won  a  complete  suc- 
cess. When  Sothern  presented  the  play  at  the  Hay- 
market  in  1861  nobody  thought  of  anything  in  the  piece 
but  the  part  of  Lord  Dundreary.  The  wonder  to  those 
who  knew  anything  of  its  previous  history  was  how  an 
actor,  even  endowed  with  the  originality  and  genius  of 
Jefferson,  could  have  made  anything  out  of  another 
character  in  the  comedy.  Sothern  was  the  great  success 
of  that  season  and  of  many  seasons  following.  He  play- 

243 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

ed  the  part  of  David  Garrick  in  Robertson's  comedy 
with  equal  or  almost  equal  success.  His  own  part  might 
be  described  as  perfection ;  but  other  English  actors  have 
won  success  as  David  Garrick,  while  there  never  was 
more  than  one  Dundreary  and  that  Dundreary  was 
Edward  Sothern. 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  make  Sothern's  acquaint- 
ance, and  I  found  him,  as  all  did  who  knew  him,  a 
charming  companion,  a  courteous  gentleman,  and  a  keen 
observer  of  the  humorous  side  of  life.  It  happens  not 
seldom  that  the  brilliant  comedian  of  the  stage  is  grave 
and  quiet,  not  to  say  uninteresting,  in  private  life,  and 
that  some  of  those  whom  he  has  kept  in  constant  laugh- 
ter while  he  appeared  before  them  on  the  stage  find 
him  but  poor  company  when  they  meet  him  in  the 
"  dreary  intercourse  of  daily  life."  But  any  one  who 
met  Sothern  for  the  first  time,  and,  if  such  a  thing  were 
possible,  had  never  heard  of  his  success  as  a  comedian, 
must  have  been  immediately  impressed  and  captivated 
by  his  winning  manners  and  his  wonderful  gift  of 
humor.  Sothern  was  very  fond  of  practical  jokes,  but 
only  of  practical  jokes  which  were  purely  good-natured, 
unless  when  he  employed  his  powers  in  the  detection  of 
impostures.  He  was  engaged  more  than  once  in  investi- 
gating and  exposing  attempts  made  to  delude  the  Lon- 
don public  by  persons  professing  to  have  mysterious 
means  of  communicating  with  the  other  world,  and  of 
calling  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep  and  other  resting- 
places  to  enlighten  credulous  inquirers  as  to  the  secrets 
of  the  unseen.  There  were  many  amusing  stories  told 
of  his  achievements  in  the  detection  of  such  impostors 
in  association  with  my  dear  old  friend  John  L.  Toole, 
who  still  lives  to  tell  the  tale,  if  he  feels  so  inclined. 

Sothern  was  a  very  social  man,  and  enjoyed  the  com- 
pany of  all  who  had  anything  to  say  worth  listening  to 

244 


STARS    THAT    ROSE    IN    THE    SIXTIES 

whatever  their  rank  or  degree.  His  society  was  much 
sought  after  in  London,  but  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
sought  after,  and  never  went  out  of  his  way  to  obtain 
admission  into  the  houses  of  the  great,  as  the  conven- 
tional phrase  goes.  The  great  sought  after  him  very 
much,  but  Sothern  did  not  become  in  any  sense  the 
spoiled  child  of  fashion.  One  never  heard  him  telling 
about  his  invitations  to  the  duke's  or  the  compliments 
paid  to  him  the  other  day  at  dinner  by  that  delightful 
duchess.  He  was  above  all  things  an  artist  in  heart  and 
soul,  and  the  one  regret  of  many  of  his  friends  was  that 
he  never  had  an  opportunity  of  proving  his  capacity  for 
the  performance  of  greater  and  nobler  comedy  than 
could  be  found  in  the  character  of  Lord  Dundreary.  I 
never  saw  him  in  any  part  but  that  of  Lord  Dundreary 
or  David  Garrick,  and  I  suppose  the  same  might  be  said 
by  the  vast  majority  of  those  who  remember  him  as  an 
actor.  But  there  was  quite  enough  of  difference,  artis- 
tic and  realistic,  between  Dundreary  and  David  Gar- 
rick  to  make  it  clear  that  Sothern  was  not  intended  by 
nature  to  be  merely  a  one-part  actor.  I  always  felt 
that  what  I  saw  of  Sothern  was  but  one  side  of  a  many- 
sided  capacity,  and  my  admiration  for  his  dramatic 
gift  was  blended  with  a  keen  regret  that  I  never  had  a 
chance  of  estimating  the  full  range  and  variety  of  his 
powers.  It  was  as  if  some  great  musician  were  com- 
pelled by  despotic  edict  to  play  nothing  but  one  or  at 
most  two  pieces  of  music,  and  to  go  through  the  whole 
of  his  life  without  allowing  his  audiences  the  chance  of 
enjoying  any  other  display  of  his  art. 

We  must  all  have  observed  instances,  in  many  an 
artistic  career,  of  a  man  who  has  struck  out  a  new  line 
for  himself  which  captures  the  public  admiration,  and 
although  he  knows  he  is  capable  of  better  things,  finds 
that  his  patron  the  public  will  have  nothing  from  him 

245 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE   SIXTIES 

but  a  repetition  of  this  one  kind  of  work.  I  was  talking 
quite  lately  to  a  very  promising  and  rising  young  artist 
with  the  pencil  who  suddenly  attracted  great  attention 
by  his  humorous  pictures  of  cats  in  all  manner  of  fan- 
tastic illustrations.  He  told  me  that  he  felt  sure  he 
could  do  other  and  better  work,  but  that  the  publishers 
and  the  public  would  insist  on  keeping  him  to  that  one 
line  of  humorous  art  and  would  not  allow  him  to  escape 
from  his  self-assumed  task  of  picturing  cats.  My  mind 
went  back  at  once  to  the  case  of  Sothern  and  Lord  Dun- 
dreary, and  to  many  other  instances  of  men  and  women 
thus  chained  to  the  oar  in  one  artistic  galley.  The 
story  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  the  creator  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle,  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  illustration  of 
this  tyranny  enforced  by  the  public.  Jefferson  had  the 
best  reason  for  believing  that  he  could  play  some  of 
Shakespeare's  parts — Mercutio,  for  instance — in  a  man- 
ner which  might  have  added  to  his  great  reputation,  but 
the  theatrical  managers  and  the  theatre-going  public 
would  insist  on  Rip  Van  Winkle  and  nothing  else,  and 
thus  he  went  through  life,  and  is  still  going  through 
life,  as  the  illustrator  of  one  sole  dramatic  character. 
Sothern  remained  in  England  for  many  years  and  then 
went  back  to  America.  He  died  in  1881,  and  his  fame 
still  lives  as  that  of  the  actor  who  created  out  of  nothing 
and  immortalized  the  part  of  Lord  Dundreary. 

I  include  in  this  chapter  the  portrait  of  Fechter,  for 
the  reason  that  he,  too,  came  upon  England  with  the 
suddenness  of  a  comet.  He  was  not,  however,  limited 
by  fate  to  the  performance  of  one  part  alone.  Fechter, 
like  Sothern,  was  born  in  England,  but  he  was  a 
foreigner  by  parentage  and  extraction,  and  was  brought 
up  in  France.  He  began  his  education  there,  but  took 
to  the  stage  when  he  was  only  sixteen  years  old  and  soon 
made  his  reputation  as  an  actor  of  the  highest  order. 

246 


STARS   THAT    ROSE    IN    THE    SIXTIES 

His  first  appearance  at  a  London  theatre  was  in  1860, 
and  at  that  time  he  was  almost  unknown  to  the  general 
public  of  England.  The  first  part  he  played  in  London 
was  in  an  English  version  of  "  Ruy  Bias,"  and  the  pub- 
lic realized  in  a  moment  that  a  new  tragedian  had  come 
upon  the  English  stage,  well  qualified  to  defy  competi- 
tion in  his  own  field  of  dramatic  art.  But  his  Ruy  Bias 
was  soon  cast  into  the  shade  when  in  the  following  sea- 
son he  ventured  on  playing  the  part  of  Hamlet.  There 
was  much  credulity  among  theatre-goers  when  the  an- 
nouncement was  made  that  he  was  about  to  play  Ham- 
let, and  the  general  opinion  was  that  only  sheer  audacity 
and  extravagant  confidence  in  his  own  powers  could 
have  led  a  foreigner  to  venture  on  such  an  undertaking 
in  London.  Fechter  spoke  English  perfectly,  so  far  as 
fluency  and  grammatical  accuracy  could  make  him  per- 
fect, but  he  had  a  most  marked  foreign  accent  even  for 
a  foreigner,  and  never  could  pronounce  a  single  sen- 
tence in  such  a  manner  as  to  pass  off  for  an  English- 
man. We  did  not  heed  that  defect  when  he  was  playing 
the  part  of  Ruy  Bias.  It  seemed  only  natural  and  in 
keeping  that  the  hero  of  a  French  play  should  not  speak 
in  the  accents  of  a  Briton.  But  how  will  it  be,  some 
people  asked,  when  he  attempts  to  pass  off  on  us  the 
Hamlet  of  Kemble  and  Edmund  Kean  and  Macready 
with  the  accents  and  the  manner  of  an  immutable 
foreigner  ?  The  first  audience,  therefore,  which  crowded 
the  theatre  to  see  his  Hamlet  was  already  prepared  for 
a  complete  and  even  ludicrous  failure.  There  was  a 
certain  feeling  of  resentment,  too,  mingled  in  the  emo- 
tions of  the  English  men  and  women  who  attended 
that  first  performance.  Yet  the  play  had  not  gone 
far  before  every  one  in  the  theatre  felt  satisfied  that, 
despite  all  his  natural  and  national  disadvantages,  he 
had  accomplished  a  great  and  thrilling  success.  Fech- 

247 


ter's  Hamlet  was  not  the  Hamlet  of  English  tradition, 
the  Hamlet  to  which  generations  of  Englishmen  had 
grown  to  be  accustomed.  It  was  not  merely  that  his 
accent  and  manners  were  impressively  foreign,  but  the 
Hamlet  itself  was  something  quite  new  to  the  British 
stage.  Fechter's  idea  was  above  all  things  to  make 
his  Hamlet  a  living  and  natural  creature,  a  man  who, 
despite  his  tragic  fate  and  the  gloomy  part  he  had  to 
play,  was  yet  a  man  like  others,  and  was  accustomed 
to  speak  and  move  after  the  manner  of  ordinary  human 
beings.  He  discarded  all  the  old  theatrical  traditions 
of  measured  stride  and  measured  pause,  the  dramatic 
tones  of  unbroken  gloom,  the  statuesque  attitudes,  the 
portentous,  awe-pervading  melancholy.  His  manner 
brought  out  for  the  first  time  to  many  Englishmen 
the  unmistakable  fact  that  Shakespeare  had  given  to 
his  great  creation  many  moods  of  kindly  or  scornful 
levity,  and  that  the  Prince  of  Denmark  often  concealed 
his  deepest  feelings  by  a  flash  of  sarcasm  or  by  mere 
jocularity.  I  do  not  know  whether  Fechter  had  studied 
Goethe  on  the  character  of  Hamlet,  but  he  certainly 
seemed  as  if  he  were  endeavoring  to  embody  Goethe's 
ideas  in  a  living  form.  This  seemed  especially  evident 
in  the  immortal  scene  with  the  grave-diggers  before 
the  newly  opened  grave.  Other  actors  were  accustomed 
to  stand  in  picturesque  attitude  at  the  very  front  of 
the  stage,  and  to  deliver  Shakespeare's  words  with  the 
manner  of  a  popular  preacher  addressing  a  hushed  and 
reverent  congregation  on  some  of  the  great  lessons  of 
mortality.  Fechter  sat  for  the  most  part  on  an  old 
and  decaying  tombstone,  had  one  of  his  legs  carelessly 
crossed  over  the  other,  and  talked  to  the  grave-diggers 
in  a  tone  of  easy  levity,  which  sometimes  gave  the  idea 
that  he  was  amusing  himself  by  drawing  them  out  and 
chaffing  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  listening  Horatio. 

248 


STARS    THAT    ROSE    IN   THE    SIXTIES 

His  attitude  was  that  which  a  great  French  painter 
has  embodied  in  his  picture  of  Hamlet  and  grave- 
diggers.  Soon  we  began  to  see  that  this  manner  of  ease 
and  assumed  levity  only  added  in  reality  a  new  depth 
of  meaning  to  the  whole  tragic  import  of  the  scene. 
Here  was  a  Hamlet  drawn  from  nature  and  not  from 
stage  tradition;  a  Hamlet  of  varied  mood;  a  man  of 
genius  and  of  fate,  whose  humor  it  was  to  clothe  his 
profoundest  thoughts  sometimes  in  a  disguise  of  care- 
less indifference  utterly  impenetrable  to  such  dull  and 
commonplace  observers  as  the  homely  grave-digger  and 
his  men.  Fechter  was  also  the  first  to  introduce  to  the 
English  stage  a  Hamlet  with  the  fair  complexion  and 
the  bright  yellow  hair  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
northern  peoples.  This  was  Goethe's  theory  as  to  the 
outward  presentment  of  the  Danish  prince.  There  was 
some  ingenious  controversy  raised  on  this,  and  people 
were  reminded  that  Hamlet's  father  is  described  in 
the  play  as  having  in  his  later  days  hair  and  beard  of 
a  sable  silvered.  It  was  urged  that  Hamlet  could  not 
be  supposed  to  have  differed  utterly  in  appearance  from 
his  own  parent.  The  controversy  created  some  lively 
discussion  at  the  time,  and  I  leave  it  for  the  considera- 
tion of  my  readers.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  Fech- 
ter's  Hamlet  was  a  complete  success  with  the  English 
public,  and  that,  for  the  time  at  least,  the  yellow- 
haired  Hamlet  held  the  stage. 

Fechter  played  many  other  great  Shakespearian 
parts  and  in  every  instance  with  the  same  result.  He 
created  a  controversy  which  was,  indeed,  a  part  of 
his  success,  and  it  was  impossible  to  look  upon  any  of 
his  impersonations  without  being  captivated  by  its 
originality,  its  thrilling  power,  and  its  quality  of  fas- 
cination. Fechter  became  the  lessee  of  the  Lyceum 
Theatre,  and  for  many  seasons  he  was  able  to  draw 

249 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

crowded  audiences  whenever  he  appeared.  Then  he 
went  to  the  United  States,  where  also  he  achieved  a  com- 
plete success.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  in  New 
York  and  in  Boston.  In  Boston  he  was  made  welcome 
to  the  great  literary  society  for  which  the  city  was 
then  distinguished.  There  was  a  famous  club  still 
flourishing  at  that  time  of  which  Emerson,  Longfellow, 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  James  Russell  Lowell,  and 
others  of  the  Boston  group  were  leading  members.  This 
club  used  to  give  weekly  dinners,  to  which  each  member 
was  allowed  to  bring  a  guest,  and  there  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  meet  Fechter  and  to  observe  the  honor  with 
which  he  was  received  by  those  gifted  authors  who 
were  not  in  the  habit  of  regarding  the  ordinary  actor 
as  one  belonging  to  their  circle.  Fechter  was  a  man 
who  had  read  and  studied  much,  and  was  able  to  hold 
his  own  in  conversation,  even  in  the  companionship  of 
men  like  those  I  have  named. 

It  was  in  Boston  that  I  saw  Fechter  for  the  last 
time,  for  he  did  not  return  to  the  scenes  of  his  early 
successes,  but  died  in  a  home  which  he  had  made  for 
himself  with  a  considerable  extent  of  ground  attached 
to  it  in  Pennsylvania.  His  name  will  always  live  in 
the  history  and  traditions  of  the  English  stage,  and 
his  management  of  the  Lyceum  Theatre  did  but  add 
to  the  lustre  which  so  long,  before  and  since,  illumined 
that  home  of  the  drama.  His  fame  was  entirely  his 
own.  He  had  no  predecessor  in  his  peculiar  style  of 
acting  and  he  left  no  successor.  Other  men  made  for 
themselves  in  our  times  a  fame  not  less  great  than  his, 
but  he  will  always  be  remembered  for  his  own  gifts 
and  for  the  originality  and  the  independence  of  his 
creations.  If  I  were  to  define  his  dramatic  principle 
I  should  say  that  it  consisted  in  his  endeavor  always 
to  reconcile  the  natural  with  the  dramatic  and  to  make 

250 


STARS    THAT    ROSE   IN   THE    SIXTIES 

the  hero  of  tragedy  seem,  after  all,  but  an  ordinary 
human  being  like  one  of  ourselves.  It  was  a  revolt 
against  the  traditional  school  of  Kemble  and  some  of 
the  great  French  actors  of  the  past.  It  has  left  at  least 
its  impression  and  its  memory  on  the  drama  of  more 
recent  days,  although  no  other  Fechter  has  yet  ap- 
peared, so  far  as  I  know,  upon  any  stage.  Up  to  the 
time  of  his  appearance  in  London  our  tragic  actors 
had  been  giving  themselves  up  more  and  more  to  mere 
tradition  and  stage  conventionality.  A  literary  friend 
of  mine  once  told  me  an  amusing  story  of  a  tragedian 
then  very  successful  in  London  and  in  the  English 
provinces  who  got  into  an  argument  about  Fechter's 
style  after  Fechter  had  made  his  first  appearance  as 
Hamlet  and  won  his  great  success.  Our  British  actor 
— I  shall  not  mention  his  name,  and  it  is  now  almost 
entirely  forgotten — eagerly  contended  that  Fechter's 
natural  style  of  acting  had  nothing  in  it  new  to  this 
country  or  from  which  English  performers  could  learn 
any  lesson.  He  declared  that  his  own  effort  had  al- 
ways been  to  make  tragic  acting  seem  natural  and 
human.  He  said  that  if  you  have  only  to  move  a  chair 
across  the  stage  you  should  do  it  just  as  any  ordinary 
man  in  real  life  would  do  it,  and  he  jumped  up  and 
illustrated  his  meaning  by  suiting  the  word  to  the 
action.  "  This  is  how  it  should  be  done,"  he  said.  Then 
seizing  a  chair  he  moved  it  across  the  floor  after  a 
fashion  in  which  no  human  being  in  real  life  ever  set 
about  to  accomplish  so  simple  an  act.  I  do  not  think 
that  readers  of  the  present  day  whose  memory  does  not 
carry  them  back  to  the  time  when  this  discussion  took 
place  can  have  any  idea  of  the  utterly  unnatural  and 
ultra-dramatic  style  in  which  the  popular  tragedians 
of  that  time  were  wont  to  enact  the  most  ordinary  move- 
ments of  human  life.  Our  leading  tragedians  have 

251 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

now  shaken  off  these  antiquated  methods,  and  Hamlet 
is  no  longer  understood  to  be  a  creature  who  must  fol- 
low implicitly  the  stage  traditions  of  the  old  school 
even  when  moving  a  chair  from  one  part  of  the  stage 
to  another.  I  believe  that  we  owe  much  of  this  happy 
change  in  our  theatric  ways  to  the  genius  and  the 
courage  of  Fechter. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

LORD    CLAEENCE    PAGET THOEOLD   EOGEE8 

I  NOW  come  upon  a  number  of  portraits  which  I  may 
form  into  a  group,  as  they  illustrate  some  figures  which 
were  very  familiar  to  all  observers  of  parliamentary 
life  during  the  sixties,  and  have  somewhat  faded  from 
the  memory  of  the  public.  Each  man  had  in  his  time 
the  impress  of  a  distinct  individuality,  and  those  who 
often  observed  them  in  those  days  and  have  almost 
forgotten  them  since  will  find  their  memory  come  back 
clearly  and  freshly  when  they  look  upon  the  portraits 
in  this  chapter.  Lord  Clarence  Paget  was  for  a  long 
time  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  among  the  number. 
During  the  sixties,  long  before  I  obtained  a  seat  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  I  observed  closely  the  members 
of  that  assembly  from  the  watch-tower  of  the  press- 
gallery,  where  for  one  session  I  used  to  report  the 
speeches,  and  for  many  sessions  after  used  to  comment 
on  the  doings  of  the  House,  as  I  then  contributed  lead- 
ing articles  to  a  London  daily  newspaper.  Lord  Clar- 
ence Paget  was  made  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty  in 
1859,  and  was  from  that  time  always  closely  occupied 
with  the  debates  on  the  condition  of  the  navy.  The 
navy,  then  as  now,  was  a  frequent  subject  of  animated 
discussion  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Lord  Clarence 
began  his  life  as  a  seaman  under  conditions  which 
give  him  a  fair  title  to  historical  fame.  When  a  mid- 
shipman on  board  the  Asia  he  took  part  in  the  mem- 

253 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

orable  battle  of  Navarino,  that  famous  and  decisive 
struggle  described  by  one  great  British  authority  as  "  an 
untoward  event."  King  William  the  Fourth,  then  Duke 
of  Clarence,  was  popularly  believed  to  have  stimulated 
it  by  a  few  words  addressed  to  the  admiral  in  com- 
mand, scrawled  at  the  end  of  a  long,  official  despatch 
from  the  Admiralty,  formally  recommending  care  and 
caution,  the  avoidance  of  all  rash  movements,  and  a 
due  regard  for  the  non-committal  of  England  to  any 
unnecessary  responsibility  at  a  great  international 
crisis.  The  admiral  in  command  of  the  British  fleet 
was  believed  to  have  interpreted  the  wishes  of  his 
superiors  from  the  hastily  scribbled  words  and  not 
from  the  formal,  official  despatch.  He  acted  upon  this 
interpretation  and  thus  brought  about,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  the  final  emancipation  of  Greece  from 
the  rule  of  the  Ottoman  power.  It  is  something  to  re- 
member that  one  has  seen  and  known  a  man  who  bore 
a  part  in  that  immortal  sea-fight,  as  Lord  Clarence  Paget 
did  in  his  early  youth.  If  King  William  the  Fourth 
really  wrote  the  words  which  led  to  Navarino,  we  must 
set  down  to  his  credit  that  breach  of  official  discipline 
which  redounds  more  to  his  honor  than  any  other  action 
of  his  life. 

In  the  later  days,  to  which  my  own  observation  be- 
longs, Lord  Clarence  was  always  a  popular  figure  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  was  a  good  debater  on  his  own 
subjects ;  he  was  never  overbearing,  always  had  a  kindly 
demeanor  towards  his  political  opponents  as  well  as  his 
political  friends,  and  after  the  hottest  controversy  was 
ready  to  exchange  social  courtesies  with  all  members  o^ 
the  House.  I  have  often  seen  him  when  the  debate  was 
done,  engaged  in  the  most  genial  conversation  with  men 
who  an  hour  before  had  been  denouncing  the  Admiralty 
and  himself,  and  laboring  hard  to  prove  that  the  doings 

254 


LORD  PAGET— THOROLD  ROGERS 

of  his  department  were  destined  to  destroy  the  position 
of  England  as  a  great  naval  power.  Then,  as  now,  the 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  always  agreed  that 
England's  greatness  depended  mainly  on  the  strength  of 
her  navy.  Even  those  who  were  scornfully  described  as 
the  advocates  of  peace  at  any  price  were  ready  to  join 
in  every  effort  to  maintain  the  efficiency  of  the  navy, 
because  they  regarded  it  as  England's  weapon  of  de- 
fence and  not  of  aggression.  This  was  the  avowed  prin-» 
ciple  of  so  great  a  lover  of  peace  as  Richard  Cobden, 
who  again  and  again  declared  that  he  was  willing  to 
approve  of  any  reasonable  expenditure  to  keep  up  the 
navy  as  the  cheap  defence— cheap  at  almost  any  pecu- 
niary cost — of  England's  national  security.  No  one 
now  believes,  and  not  many  believed  then,  that  Cobden 
and  Bright  were  advocates  of  peace  at  any  price.  Bright, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  never  a  member  of  the  Peace 
Association  which  existed  in  those  days,  and  was  now 
and  then  rather  aggressive  in  its  insistence  on  a  pacific 
policy.  On  one  occasion,  after  a  very  animated  debate 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  during  which  the  advocates 
of  peace  vehemently  denounced  the  ministry  on  the 
ground  that  they  were  pushing  too  far  their  naval  prep- 
arations for  some  possible  war,  an  interchange  of  let- 
ters took  place  between  Bright  and  Lord  Clarence 
Paget,  in  which  each  cordially  recognized  the  good  pur- 
poses and  the  reasonable  policy  of  the  other. 

Lord  Clarence  was  a  Liberal  in  politics,  but  he  was 
an  official  Liberal,  as  the  phrase  went,  and  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  distinguish  an  official  Liberal  of  that  time 
from  the  ordinary  Conservative  of  the  present  day.  I 
am  now  talking  of  the  period  when  Palmerston  was  su- 
preme, the  closing  years  of  his  life,  when,  although  still 
almost  a  revolutionary  in  foreign  politics,  he  opposed 
a  steady  resistance  to  the  movements  of  the  advanced 

255 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

English  Liberals,  before  the  influence  of  Gladstone  had 
been  given  to  the  liberal  cause.  I  remember  being 
much  impressed  by  the  tone  of  the  letters  interchanged 
between  John  Bright  and  Lord  Clarence,  and  the  evi- 
dence it  gave  that  these  two  sincere  men  were  able  to 
recognize  that  each  was  engaged,  according  to  his  lights, 
in  the  promotion  of  England's  welfare.  Lord  Clarence 
was  always  a  busy,  even  a  bustling  personage  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  he  showed  nothing  in  his  de- 
meanor or  in  his  official  conduct  of  the  red-tapeism 
which  used  to  be  regarded  by  satirists  as  the  essential 
quality  of  an  official  of  any  state  department.  There 
was  a  distinct  impression  of  individuality  about  Lord 
Clarence ;  you  never  mistook  him  for  anybody  else  even 
if  you  had  only  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  him. 
I  have  often  noticed  that  there  are  men  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  as  indeed  everywhere,  whom  you  may  see 
often  and  yet  whose  identity  you  easily  forget  if  you  re- 
main for  a  considerable  time  without  seeing  them.  I 
can  recall  one  instance  in  which  I  committed  myself  to 
a  mistake  of  this  kind.  There  was  at  a  later  period  a 
member  of  the  House  who  had  held  a  subordinate  office 
in  an  administration,  whom  I  was  in  the  habit  of  seeing 
very  often  and  with  whom  I  was  on  speaking  terms. 
After  a  general  election  I  came  back  to  the  House,  and 
failed  to  observe  that  the  honorable  member  did  not 
make  his  appearance  there.  A  long  time  passed  before 
I  saw  him  again,  and  then  I  met  him  at  a  dinner-party. 
I  remembered  his  appearance  and  his  name  at  once  and 
we  got  into  conversation.  I  remarked  that  I  had  not 
seen  him  in  the  House  for  some  time,  and  that  I  was 
afraid  he  had  been  rather  neglecting  his  official  duties. 
I  saw  a  look  of  surprise  and  of  something  like  dissatis- 
faction come  over  his  face,  and  he  then  said  he  had  not 
been  a  member  of  the  House  for  more  than  two  years, 

256 


LORD  PAGET— THOROLD  ROGERS 

having  lost  his  seat  at  the  last  general  election.  I  tried 
to  make  some  explanation,  but  I  am  afraid  the  explana- 
tion was  not  quite  satisfactory.  Out  of  concern  for  my 
own  credit  I  forbear  to  tell  his  name,  because  to  do  so 
would  only  render  my  mistake  the  more  ridiculous. 
The  fact  is  that  he  was  one  of  the  men  who  do  not  im- 
press one  with  a  sense  of  individuality.  My  acquaint- 
ance with  him  had  always  been  slight ;  I  had  associated 
him  only  with  a  certain  administrative  office  and  with 
the  occasional  answering  of  questions  addressed  to  his 
department,  and  as  I  had  seldom  put  any  of  these  ques- 
tions I  ceased  to  think  about  him  when  he  no  longer 
held  his  place  on  the  treasury  bench.  Lord  Clarence 
Paget  never  belonged  to  that  order  of  official  humanity. 
When  you  had  seen  and  heard  him  once  you  always  re- 
membered his  presence,  his  voice,  and  his  bearing.  He 
could  not  pass  from  your  memory.  He  was  engaged  in 
the  command  of  a  vessel  during  the  expedition  to  the 
Baltic  in  1854,  but  that  enterprise  was  not  one  to 
give  opportunity  for  the  display  of  great  naval  capacity, 
even  in  a  Dundonald,  and  it  must  have  seemed  a  strange 
anti-climax  to  him  who  in  his  youth  had  borne  a  part 
in  the  history-making  battle  of  Navarino. 

George  Olive  is  the  subject  of  another  portrait,  in  this 
chapter.  I  remember  him  well  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  the  early  sixties.  He  was'Under-Secretary  for 
the  Home  Department  for  some  three  years,  and  a  famil- 
iar figure  in  parliamentary  life,  although  it  cannot  be 
said  that  he  made  a  profound  impression  even  on  the 
passing  history  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  re- 
garded as  an  advanced  Liberal  in  those  days,  although 
he  was  only  a  Liberal  of  the  official  order;  but  he 
entertained  the  political  principles  which  were  then 
considered  decidedly  radical.  He  was  described  in 
Dod's  Parliamentary  Companion  as  an  advocate  of 
"  257 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE   SIXTIES 

franchise  reform  vote  by  ballot,  and  the  abolition  of 
church  rates.  It  must  be  remembered  that  most  of  the 
leaders  of  his  party  regarded  such  doctrines  as  the 
tenets  of  downright  radicalism,  tending  directly  towards 
the  government  of  the  empire  by  a  lawless  democracy 
and  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  British  Constitution. 
The  recognized  official  opinion  of  a  liberal  administra- 
tion in  those  days  was  that  enough  had  been  done  in  the 
way  of  extended  franchise,  that  secret  voting  could  only 
lead  to  the  upsetting  of  all  legitimate  authority,  and 
that  any  interference  with  the  rights  of  the  state 
church  was  but  opening  the  way  to  irreligion  and 
anarchy.  The  introduction  of  the  ballot  was  then  the 
subject  of  a  motion  introduced  every  session  by  some 
eccentric  and  uncontrollable  private  member  whom  the 
leaders  on  both  sides  of  the  House  treated  with  tolerance 
or  indifference,  and  whose  annual  motion  they  looked 
upon  as  an  inevitable  incident  to  be  disposed  of  on  each 
successive  presentation  by  a  merciful  ministerial  reply. 
The  maxim  that  constant  dropping  of  water  wears  away 
a  stone  had  not  yet  come  to  be  applied  as  a  fact  in 
politics  by  most  of  the  leading  men  of  either  party.  We 
must,  therefore,  give  George  Olive  the  credit  for  his 
views  as  an  advanced  reformer,  and  admit  that  he  saw 
a  good  deal  further  into  the  progress  of  our  constitu- 
tional development  than  most  of  those  who  were  at  the 
time  his  superiors  in  office.  He  is  well  entitled  to  a 
place  in  this  collection  of  portraits,  and  his  memory 
deserves  to  be  rescued  from  parliamentary  oblivion. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  description  of  a  man  as  a 
Liberal-Conservative  would  convey  any  clear  idea  to  a 
reader  of  the  present  day.  Undoubtedly  we  have  now 
Liberal-Conservatives  as  we  had  then  and  at  all  other 
times.  Of  late  years  we  have  seen  in  the  Commons, 
and  even  in  the  Lords,  many  Conservatives  whose 

258 


LORD  PAGET— THOROLD  ROGERS 

opinions  on  some  important  question  are  more  liberal 
than  those  of  official  Liberals  in  general.  But  it  must 
have  been  somewhat  peculiar  in  the  early  sixties  to 
meet  with  an  Irish  landlord  who  boldly  proclaimed 
himself  a  Liberal-Conservative.  Such  a  man  was  Colo- 
nel Dunne,  the  Irish  landlord  who  at  that  time  repre- 
sented Portarlington  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
he  was  thus  described  in  the  accurate  record  of  Dod, 
which  sets  out  the  political  opinions  of  a  member  ac- 
cording to  the  member's  own  definition. 

I  remember  hearing  an  amusing  speech,  made  before 
the  sixties  but  brought  back  to  my  mind  by  this  de- 
scription of  an  Irish  landlord  with  the  political  opinions 
of  Colonel  Dunne,  by  a  man  who  had  a  parliamentary, 
literary,  and  social  position  in  his  day,  who  was  a 
friend  of  Thackeray,  and  has  been  mentioned  by  him 
more  than  once.  This  man  was  Sergeant  Murphy,  a 
distinguished  advocate,  and  the  speech  was  delivered 
at  an  election  in  Cork  city.  Sergeant  Murphy  was 
being  "  heckled  "  by  an  Irish  tory  landlord  because 
of  his  liberal  opinions.  A  lively  discussion  took  place, 
during  which  Sergeant  Murphy  made  some  allusion  to 
the  Encumbered  States  Act,  which  the  Irish  landlord 
seemed  not  quite  to  understand.  The  learned  sergeant 
seized  the  opportunity,  and  went  on  to  say  that  he  might 
have  thought,  before  the  reply  he  had  just  heard,  that 
there  was  a  task  opened  to  him  more  difficult  than  that 
which  Diogenes  undertook  when  he  searched  with  a 
lantern  through  the  streets  of  Athens  to  find  an  honest 
man — the  task  of  seeking  with  a  lantern  through  the 
streets  of  Cork  for  an  Irish  landlord  who  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  Encumbered  States  Act.  The  delighted 
laughter  which  followed  this  hit  prevented  the  per- 
plexed landlord  from  making  any  prompt  and  audible 
explanation  of  his  awkward  position.  But  for  the 

259 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

record  of  Colonel  Dunne's  opinions  I  should  have 
thought  it  would  be  as  trying  an  ordeal  to  find  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  in  the  early  sixties,  an  Irish  land- 
lord of  Colonel  Dunne's  class  with  his  political  prin- 
ciples. 

Of  course  there  were  liberal  Irish  landlords  in  the 
early  sixties,  although  not  belonging  to  the  same  set 
as  that  which  would  have  claimed  Colonel  Dunne. 
There  was,  for  instance,  Richard  Montesquieu  Bellew, 
whose  portrait  we  give,  and  who  was  for  some  years 
a  lord  of  the  treasury  in  a  liberal  administration  before 
the  date  to  which  this  volume  belongs. 

Bellew  was  an  advocate  of  short  Parliaments,  vote 
by  ballot,  the  removal  of  all  religious  disabilities  at 
universities,  and  the  establishment  of  tenant  right  in 
Ireland — a  declaration  of  opinion  which  would  sound 
liberal  even  in  our  own  days.  I  have  a  distinct  recol- 
lection of  him  as  a  parliamentary  figure,  although  his 
political  career  made  no  great  impression  on  the  House 
of  Commons  or  on  the  history  of  his  day.  He  deserves 
a  record  in  these  pages  if  only  for  the  fact  that  he 
could  see  so  far  in  advance  the  reforms  destined  to 
come  in  their  own  good  time,  and  in  the  establishment 
of  which  conservative  as  well  as  liberal  governments 
may  claim  to  have  had  a  share. 

I  come  now  to  a  man  who  made  a  much  greater 
impression  on  political  and  on  intellectual  life  than 
any  of  those  already  mentioned  in  this  chapter.  This 
man  was  the  late  Professor  James  E.  Thorold  Rogers, 
who  taught  political  economy  in  the  University  of 
Oxford  and  economic  science  in  King's  College,  London. 
Many  of  my  readers  will  have  a  very  distinct  recol- 
lection of  Thorold  Rogers,  for  he  sat  in  the  House  of 
Commons  from  1880  to  1886,  and  died  so  lately  as 
October,  1890.  I  had  the  honor  of  knowing  him  dur- 

260 


LORD  PAGET— THOROLD  ROGERS 

ing  the  years  when  he  was  in  Parliament  and  when  I, 
too,  had  a  seat  there,  but  his  fame  does  not  belong  to 
his  years  of  parliamentary  service.  His  seat  in  the 
House  was  only  the  recognition  of  the  great  services 
he  had  rendered  at  an  earlier  date  to  political  reform 
and  the  advancement  of  economic  science.  Thorold 
Rogers  was  associated  with  many  of  the  movements  in 
which  Cobden  and  Bright  took  a  leading  part.  He 
was  a  man  of  the  most  marked  individuality,  and  had, 
in  every  sense,  the  courage  of  his  opinions.  Some  of 
his  opponents  thought,  and  said  in  their  different  ways, 
that  he  had  rather  more  than  the  courage  needed  to 
sustain  his  personal  opinions,  for  he  was  a  very  ag- 
gressive controversialist  and  a  decidedly  hard  hitter. 
He  was  often  engaged  in  acrimonious  discussion,  and 
generally  gave  his  opponents  much  better  than  they 
brought.  His  education  was  broad  and  deep,  his  culture 
was  refined,  and  he  had  a  most  intimate  acquaintance 
with  all  the  problems  of  economic  science. 

Bright,  who  was  commonly  accused  of  nourishing 
a  contempt  for  university  education,  once  -declared  in 
a  public  speech  that  even  if  he  did  entertain  such  a  con- 
tempt he  must  have  to  make  an  exception  in  favor  of 
men  like  Thorold  Rogers  and  Goldwin  Smith,  who 
always  turned  their  university  education  to  the  best 
account  by  making  themselves  the  advocates  of  every 
great  reform  in  the  interest  of  the  working-classes  and 
the  poor.  At  that  time  many  of  us  were  in  the  habit 
of  associating  Thorold  Rogers  and  Goldwin  Smith 
as  fellow-laborers  in  every  great  cause  of  political  ad- 
vancement, and  we  seldom  heard  the  one  name  without 
thinking  of  the  other.  Thorold  Rogers — and  here  again 
he  resembled  Goldwin  Smith — was  a  man  of  thorough- 
ly independent  opinions,  and  his  resolve  to  think  for 
himself  brought  him  more  than  once  into  direct  antag- 

261 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

onism  with  the  leaders  whom  on  ordinary  questions  he 
always  followed.  He  could  not  be  called  eccentric 
in  his  ideas  even  by  his  extreme  opponents,  but  he  could 
not  absolutely  give  himself  up  to  any  school  of  political 
or  economic  opinions.  The  friends  and  allies  who  some- 
times believed  him  to  be  going  wrong  were  quite  ready 
to  admit  that  he  was  only  following  the  light  of  his 
own  convictions  even  when,  according  to  their  judg- 
ment, his  views  were  distinctly  wrong.  He  rendered 
most  valuable  service,  during  that  period  of  the  sixties 
when  the  American  civil  war  was  going  on,  by  his 
efforts  to  keep  English  public  opinion  on  the  right  side 
of  that  memorable  struggle. 

The  great  bulk  of  what  was  known  as  society  took 
up  the  cause  of  the  Southern  States,  and  had  made  up 
its  mind  that  the  South  had  not  only  the  right  of  the 
controversy  but  was  certain  to  get  the  best  of  it  in  the 
war.  There  was  an  extraordinary  idea  pervading  that 
class,  and  receiving  encouragement  from  English  states- 
men who  ought  to  have  known  better,  that  the  Amer- 
icans of  the  Northern  States  could  not  fight,  and  were 
destined  to  make  but  the  poorest  show  in  a  contest  with 
Southern  chivalry.  Lord  Palmerston  in  more  than  one 
of  his  public  speeches  made  great  fun  of  the  Northern 
armies  and  of  the  Northern  defeat  at  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  and  there  was  an  inclination  among  those  whom 
he  especially  addressed  to  believe  that  the  Northerners 
were  merely  a  crowd  of  traders  and  shopkeepers  who 
did  not  know  how  to  fight  and  who  were  sure,  whenever 
they  came  into  contact  with  a  Southern  force,  to  make 
what  Palmerston  called  "  certain  rapid  strategic  move- 
ments to  the  rear."  Men  like  Cobden  and  Bright  and 
John  Stuart  Mill  took  a  different  view  of  the  Northern 
cause  and  of  the  Northern  fighting-men,  and  Thorold 
Rogers  maintained  their  views  with  admirable  force  of 

262 


LORD  PAGKT— THOROLD  ROGERS 

argument  and  expression.  For  a  time  it  seemed  as  if 
Thorold  Rogers  and  those  with  whom  he  associated  him- 
self were  fighting  a  hopeless  battle  out  of  sheer  perverse- 
ness.  For  some  inexplicable  reason  they  were  regarded 
by  their  opponents  as  un-English  and  unpatriotic  be- 
cause they  advocated  the  claims  of  the  Northern  cause 
and  encouraged  the  men  who  maintained  it  on  the  battle- 
field. I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Thorold  Rogers  at  that  time, 
and  of  the  statesmen  with  whom  he  allied  himself,  and 
I  could  not  but  admire  the  unflinching  courage  and 
devotion  with  which  they  held  their  course,  undeterred 
and  undismayed  by  the  social  forces  brought  to  bear 
against  them.  The  great  mass  of  Englishmen  outside 
what  are  called  the  privileged  classes,  and  including 
almost  without  exception  the  working-men  and  the 
democracy  everywhere  in  the  country,  were  with  them 
even  at  the  time  when  the  prospects  of  the  North  and 
of  the  antislavery  advocates  seemed  darkest.  The 
progress  of  the  war  soon  made  it  clear  that  the  North- 
ern States  were  certain  to  carry  the  day,  and  then 
there  began  to  be  more  and  more  evident  a  gradual 
change  in  the  views  of  society.  I  heard  Thorold  Rogers 
often  make  contemptuous  and  sarcastic  allusion  to  this 
fresh  evidence  of  the  familiar  proposition  that  nothing 
succeeds  like  success. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  productions  of  Thorold 
Rogers's  pen  is  The  Industrial  and  Commercial  History 
of  England,  edited  by  his  son,  Arthur  G.  L.  Rogers, 
and  published  by  Fisher  TJnwin  not  very  many  years 
ago.  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  the  preface,  by 
the  younger  Rogers,  in  which  he  describes  the  labors 
of  his  father  in  endeavoring  to  teach  his  great  economic 
doctrines  through  the  medium  of  lectures  to  university 
classes.  "  Let  the  professor  of  political  economy  teach 
what  he  will,  even  the  undergraduates  who  seek  honors 

263 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

in  the  history  school  soon  drop  away.  In  this  way  it 
came  about  that  these  lectures  were  attended  by  an 
extremely  small  audience.  Had  the  professor  of  po- 
litical economy  given  these  lectures  in  some  industrial 
centre,  hundreds  of  workmen  would,  I  believe,  have 
paid  to  listen  to  them.  But,  in  the  home  of  learning, 
some  dozen  men  of  education  attended  lectures  thrown 
open,  free,  to  every  member  of  the  university."  Mr. 
Rogers  concludes  his  preface  by  saying  that  "  if  any 
apology  were  needed  for  the  publication  of  this  book, 
this  alone  would  suffice."  The  comments  are  full  of 
interest,  and  it  is  well  for  the  world  that  they  should 
be  made  and  published  even  though  the  collection  of 
the  lectures  into  a  volume  needs  no  manner  of  apology. 
The  book  is  a  most  valuable  addition  to  the  literature 
of  economic  science,  and  would  of  itself  secure  for 
Professor  Thorold  Rogers  an  abiding-place  among  the 
world's  political  economists. 

The  book  is  a  characteristic  illustration  of  Thorold 
Rogers's  style  as  a  controversialist.  No  man  could  be 
more  fair  and  liberal  in  the  meed  of  praise  he  gives  to 
all  who  preceded  him  in  such  work,  and  from  whom  he 
professes  to  have  derived  most  valuable  instruction. 
But  it  is  the  work  above  all  things  of  a  fighting-man, 
and  the  learned  professor  seems  never  so  much  himself 
as  when  he  is  assailing  and  ridiculing  the  doctrines  of 
his  opponents,  and  denouncing  the  systems  of  adminis- 
tration which  gave  practical  force  to  this  teaching  in 
the  form  of  taxes  and  systems  of  economic  law  unfairly 
raised  and  recklessly  misapplied.  There  is  something 
highly  refreshing  to  the  ordinary  reader,  who  is  apt  to 
regard  political  economy  as  a  study  without  heart  and 
without  enthusiasm,  in  the  ardor,  the  vehemence,  and 
even  the  bitterness  with  which  Rogers  shows  up  the 
absurdity  and  the  social  wrong  of  many  processes  of 

264 


LORD  PAGET— THOROLD  ROGERS 

taxation  then  regarded  by  too  many  British  statesmen 
as  a  sacred  embodiment  of  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors. 
Thorold  Rogers  could  be  as  enthusiastic  in  denouncing 
a  badly  conceived  and  misapplied  impost  as  if  he  were 
showing  up  deeds  of  despotic  oppression  or  of  indi- 
vidual cruelty.  A  false  action  in  economic  science  he 
condemned  with  as  much  severity  of  censure  as  if  he 
were  dealing  with  a  blasphemous  doctrine  of  faith. 
The  emphasis  of  his  convictions  in  this  domain  of 
thought  had  its  effect  upon  his  career  as  teacher  of 
economic  science.  He  was  elected  professor  of  political 
economy  at  Oxford  in  1862,  but,  as  one  of  his  biogra- 
phers tells,  he  "  made  so  many  enemies  by  his  out- 
spoken zeal  for  reform  "  that  when  his  occupancy  of 
the  position  came  to  its  due  term  in  1867  he  was  not 
re-elected  to  the  office  until  1888.  He  had  taken  orders 
in  the  Established  Church  and  was  for  a  time  a  de- 
voted follower  of  the  Puseyite  doctrines,  but  he  had  no 
calling  for  the  Church,  and  finally  renounced  the  re- 
ligious profession  in  1870,  and  devoted  himself  entirely 
to  his  own  cherished  studies  in  history,  biography,  and 
political  economy.  He  could  not,  according  to  the  laws 
of  this  country,  have  obtained  a  seat  in  the  House  of 
Commons  without  this  complete  withdrawal  from  his 
functions  in  the  Church,  but  no  one  who  knew  anything 
of  Rogers  supposed  that  ambition  to  obtain  a  place  in 
Parliament  or  any  personal  advantage  could  have  had 
aught  to  do  with  his  change  of  profession.  I  never 
knew  a  man  with  whom  personal  ambition  or  the  desire 
for  advancement  had  less  influence  in  directing  the 
course  of  his  life  than  Thorold  Rogers.  The  sincerity 
of  his  belief  alone  guided  him  through  the  whole  of  his 
career.  There  was  nothing  of  the  sentimentalist  in 
him ;  he  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  governed  by  emo- 
tions or  instincts,  but  merely  examined  every  question 

265 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

by  the  dry  light  of  what  seemed  to  him  practical  reason, 
and  he  would  have  renounced  his  most  cherished  con- 
victions on  any  subject,  without  a  moment's  hesitation, 
if  he  found  good  reason  to  believe  that  his  previous 
study  and  examination  were  leading  him  the  wrong 
way.  He  was  in  this  sense,  but  in  this  only,  a  thor- 
oughly self-absorbed  man.  He  only  asked  to  be  shown 
the  right  path,  and  that  path  he  firmly  trod  without 
more  regard  to  a  reputation  for  consistency  than  he 
showed  for  his  own  individual  interests.  If  he  had  to 
stand  alone  he  would  have  stood  alone  quite  undis- 
mayed, and  probably  with  a  firm  belief  that  the  best  of 
those  from  whom  he  had  turned  away  would  some  time 
be  converted  to  his  latest  opinions  and  come  up  with 
him  in  the  end.  If  there  was  in  such  a  course  any 
blending  element  of  so  poor  a  quality  as  self-conceit, 
that  certainly  was  the  only  self-conceit  which  the  closest 
observer  could  have  found  in  the  unselfish  nature  of 
Thorold  Rogers. 


CHAPTER  XX 

GOLDWIN     SMITH 

GOLDWIN  SMITH  well  deserves  a  chapter  to  himself 
in  a  volume  given  up  to  portraits  from  the  sixties.  All 
that  part  of  his  active  and  thoughtful  career  which  was 
most  conspicuous  and  influential  in  England  belongs  to 
the  sixties.  Before  the  epoch  had  actually  closed  he 
withdrew  altogether  from  English  life.  To  the  younger 
generation  of  Englishmen  the  name  of  Goldwin  Smith 
seems  probably  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  past.  Every 
youth  who  has  had  anything  like  a  fair  education  is  well 
aware  that  Goldwin  Smith  was  a  man  of  high  intellect 
and  great  argumentative  power  who  rendered  splendid 
services  to  political,  economical,  and  intellectual  prog- 
ress during  his  day,  but  I  can  well  believe  that  many 
such  a  vouth  might  be  a  little  uncertain  whether  Gold- 

»/  o 

win  Smith  belonged  to  the  period  of  Adam  Smith  or 
had  come  as  far  down  in  our  times  as  John  Stuart  Mill. 
The  explanation  of  this  possible  vagueness  in  the  minds 
of  the  younger  generation  is  easily  given.  More  than 
thirty-five  years  have  passed  since  Goldwin  Smith  found 
a  home  across  the  Atlantic,  and  he  has  since  only  been 
heard  of  at  intervals  in  his  native  country.  During  the 
years  when  he  was  a  moving  figure  in  English  life  he 
was  a  very  influential  and  prominent  figure  indeed,  and 
we  read  in  every  day's  newspapers  the  account  of  the 
part  he  had  taken  in  some  great  controversy  then  occu- 
pying public  attention. 

267 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Goldwin  Smith  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Oxford, 
took  first  honors  in  classics,  gained  prizes  for  the  Latin 
essay,  for  Latin  verse,  and  for  the  English  essay.  He 
was  appointed  by  the  government  assistant-secretary 
of  the  royal  commission  on  the  state  of  Oxford  Uni- 
versity. He  was  afterwards  appointed  to  the  Regius 
Professorship  of  Modern  History,  and  held  that  posi- 
tion until  1866.  Before  this  later  period  all  the  great 
questions  had  come  up  which  were  raised  by  the  an- 
tagonism between  the  Northern  and  Southern  States  of 
the  American  republic  ending  in  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war.  Goldwin  Smith  threw  himself  heart  and  soul 
into  that  momentous  controversy.  He  took  his  side 
because  of  his  objection  on  every  ground  to  the  exist- 
ence of  slavery,  which  he  justly  regarded  as  the  founda- 
tion of  the  whole  dispute,  and  he  published  several 
pamphlets  enforcing  his  opinion  in  eloquent  language, 
addressed  to  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  all  intelligent 
readers. 

In  writing  of  Thorold  Rogers  I  have  already  given 
a  short  account  of  the  effect  produced  on  English  public 
opinion  by  that  great  dispute  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  majority  of  that  class  which  we  describe  as  so- 
ciety took  the  side  of  the  South,  while  the  best  intellects 
of  England  in  politics,  literature,  and  science,  and  the 
whole  mass  of  the  English  working  population  adhered 
to  and  advocated  the  cause  of  the  North.  Never  within 
my  time  has  there  occurred  an  epoch  more  full  of  ab- 
sorbing interest  in  English  public  controversy.  Men 
like  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer,  who  had 
never  taken  any  public  part  in  political  life  before, 
were  to  be  seen  and  heard  at  meetings  as  champions  of 
that  cause  of  human  freedom  which  they  believed  to  be 
at  issue  in  the  American  civil  war.  It  was  probably 
then  for  the  first  time  that  Goldwin  Smith  came  into 

268 


GOLDWIN    SMITH 

close  and  constant  association  with  Cobden  and  Bright. 
As  a  rule  the  followers  of  Cobden  and  Bright  had 
not  until  that  epoch  found  themselves  much  in  com- 
panionship with  leading  representatives  of  university 
culture  in  these  countries.  The  university  don  kept 
himself  for  the  most  part  away  from  popular  organiza- 
tions, and  there  was  a  sort  of  vague  impression  perme- 
ating society  that  culture  and  scholarship  could  not  give 
much  countenance  to  the  popular  doctrines  about  the 
equality  of  classes,  the  civic  rights  of  man,  and  the 
rights  of  labor  which  were  advocated  from  what  was 
called  the  Manchester  platform.  I  can  well  remember 
the  delight,  not  unmingled  with  surprise,  felt  by  Cobden 
and  Bright  when  they  found  university  scholars  and 
magnates  like  Goldwin  Smith  presenting  themselves  at 
great  public  meetings  as  champions  of  these  popular  but 
not  socially  recognized  doctrines.  Goldwin  Smith  was 
able  to  encounter  the  higher  culture  on  its  own  field, 
and  to  show  that  science  and  scholarship,  political  econ- 
omy and  university  education,  were  on  the  side  of 
those  who  maintained  the  right  of  the  negro  to  be  free, 
and  of  the  British  working-man  to  have  some  voice  in 
the  government  of  his  country.  The  advocates  of  those 
principles  were  proud  to  be  able  to  tell  their  opponents 
of  the  higher  culture  order  that  the  very  best  men  of 
their  own  most  honored  class  were  against  them  in  this 
vital  dispute.  "  You  may  be  very  learned  persons,  but 
you  can  hardly  think  that  you  are  endowed  with  quite 
as  many  intellectual  gifts  and  quite  as  much  mental  in- 
struction as  Herbert  Spencer  and  Stuart  Mill,  Goldwin 
Smith  and  Thorold  Rogers." 

Goldwin  Smith  was  especially  fitted  to  be  a  champion 
in  such  a  cause  and  at  such  a  time.  He  was  imbued 
with  the  very  spirit  of  controversy.  He  loved  an  argu- 
ment, and  as  he  had  fully  thought  out  every  question 

269 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

before  giving  his  judgment  on  it,  he  was  prepared  to 
follow  his  convictions  whither  they  might  lead.  Every- 
body who  knew  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer  knew  that 
their  natural  inclination  would  always  be  to  keep  them- 
selves from  platform  or  parliamentary  debate  as  long 
as  possible,  to  think  out  every  subject  in  the  calm  seclu- 
sion of  the  study,  and  to  give  forth  their  opinions  only 
through  the  form  of  printed  essays  and  volumes.  The 
platform  was  only  ventured  on  by  these  men  when  they 
saw  that  a  crisis  had  arisen  calling  on  them  to  sacrifice 
their  own  personal  predilections  and  ways  of  life  to  the 
duty  of  lending  every  possible  assistance  to  the  support 
of  the  opinions  they  believed  to  be  just.  But  Goldwin 
Smith,  when  once  he  had  come  forth  from  the  seclusion 
of  university  life,  appeared  to  feel  a  positive  delight  in 
the  conflict  and  to  be  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  for  an 
encounter  with  any  opponent  worthy  of  his  steel.  Never 
was  a  cause  better  served  and  by  a  more  capable  and 
self-sacrificing  advocate  than  was  the  cause  of  human 
freedom,  during  that  momentous  struggle,  by  Goldwin 
Smith.  The  effect  of  his  advocacy  was  all  the  more  im- 
pressive because  it  was  well  known  that  he  was  a  thor- 
oughly independent  thinker,  and  that  no  merely  dog- 
matic school  could  count  upon  him  as  one  of  its  pledged 
and  obedient  followers.  At  the  very  hour  when  he  was 
helping  Cobden  and  Bright  to  fight  out  their  great 
battle  there  were  many  of  their  views  on  other  political 
and  economic  questions  with  which  he  could  not  agree, 
and  he  never  hesitated  to  proclaim  a  difference  of 
opinion  when  he  felt  it. 

Goldwin  Smith  cared  nothing  about  the  names  of 
parties,  and  although  his  convictions  made  him  a  Radi- 
cal, so  far  as  the  questions  then  mainly  under  dispute 
were  concerned,  he  would  have  gone  to  the  help  of  a 
tory  party  on  any  subject  concerning  which  he  believed 

270 


GOLDWIN    SMITH 

the  tory  party  to  be  in  the  right.  If  he  had  been  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  he  would  assuredly 
have  been  from  first  to  last  what  is  known  as  an  inde- 
pendent member.  He  would  have  sat  on  one  of  the 
benches  below  the  gangway,  and  if  the  party  with  whom 
he  had  voted  nine  times  out  of  ten  happened  according 
to  his  judgment  to  go  wrong  on  the  tenth  question,  he 
would  have  done  his  best  to  show  its  leaders  that  they 
did  not  understand  what  they  were  talking  about,  and 
he  would  have  gone  resolutely  into  the  lobby  against 
them.  He  could  never  have  consented  to  be  an  inde- 
pendent member  of  that  more  docile  order  who  is  con- 
tent when  he  cannot  quite  agree  with  his  leaders  to  go 
quietly  out  of  the  House  without  speaking  or  voting 
and  thus  save  them  from  the  discomfort  and  discredit 
of  a  seeming  act  of  mutiny  within  their  own  ranks.  He 
would  have  felt  it  his  duty  to  argue  against  them  and 
vote  against  them  on  that  one  particular  question,  just 
as  if  he  had  never  agreed  with  them  on  any  subject  dur- 
ing the  course  of  his  life.  This  resolute  and  thorough 
independence  was  of  immense  value  in  lending  influ- 
ence to  Goldwin  Smith's  advocacy  of  those  great  ques- 
tions wherein  as  a  controversialist  out  of  Parliament 
he  found  himself  drawn  to  take  the  side  of  that  section 
of  the  liberal  party  then  regarded  as  radical.  I  had 
many  opportunities  of  knowing  that  for  this  very  reason 
men  were  sometimes  deeply  influenced  by  the  arguments 
of  Goldwin  Smith  who  might  have  paid  but  little  atten- 
tion to  the  pleadings  of  recognized  radical  orators. 
"  We  know  what  Cobden  and  Bright  would  naturally 
say  on  such  subjects,"  these  men  would  urge ;  "  we  know 
what  their  doctrine  is  about  liberty  and  the  rights  of 
humanity  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  but  when  a  man 
like  Goldwin  Smith  comes  out  from  his  college  retire- 
ment to  stand  up  for  a  cause,  then  we  begin  to  feel  that 

271 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE  SIXTIES 

there  must  really  be  something  in  it."  I  have  heard 
such  utterances  over  and  over  again,  and  they  helped 
me  to  understand  the  inestimable  advantages  given  by 
Goldwin  Smith's  adhesion  and  arguments  to  the  great 
cause  then  represented  by  the  radical  party  in  England. 
Goldwin  Smith's  championship  of  the  Northern 
cause  made  him,  as  was  to  be  expected,  immensely 
popular  in  the  Northern  States,  and  while  the  civil 
war  was  still  going  on  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  under- 
take a  lecturing  tour  in  America,  where  he  met  with  a 
splendid  success.  Then  it  began  to  be  said  in  England 
by  those  who  had  felt  the  force  of  his  arguments  only 
too  keenly  for  their  political  satisfaction,  that  the  Ox- 
ford professor  was  becoming  thoroughly  denationalized, 
and  that  he  could  no  longer  be  regarded  as  a  genuine 
Englishman.  His  political  opponents  said  that  he  had 
gone  over  to  republicanism  and  that  he  could  no  longer 
endure  the  ways  of  a  country  which  acknowledged  a 
sovereign  and  the  principle  of  hereditary  succession. 
Those  who  knew  Goldwin  Smith  somewhat  better  were 
satisfied  that  he  would  never  give  himself  up  body  and 
soul  to  any  mere  formality  or  convention  where  the 
welfare  of  communities  was  concerned,  and  that  if  he 
did  not  thoroughly  approve  of  the  way  in  which  things 
were  managed  under  a  republican  government,  he  would 
be  just  as  ready  to  express  his  opinions  as  he  had  proved 
himself  to  be  under  a  monarchical  system.  Goldwin 
Smith  returned  to  his  native  country  and  published  his 
valuable  books  on  England  and  America  and  The  Civil 
War  in  America.  But  he  remained  in  England  only 
four  years.  In  1868  he  resigned  his  position  at  Ox- 
ford and  went  out  again  to  the  United  States.  There 
he  accepted  the  position  of  Professor  of  English  and 
Constitutional  History  in  the  Cornell  University  at 
Ithaca  in  the  State  of  New  York. 

2Y2 


GOLDWIN    SMITH 

This  Cornell  University  was  then  a  novelty  in  Amer- 
ican institutions.  It  was  founded  by  Ezra  Cornell,  a 
man  who  had  made  a  great  fortune  as  a  contractor  for 
telegraphic  systems,  and  who  showed  an  honorable  de- 
sire to  associate  his  name  with  educational  institutions. 
I  had  many  opportunities  at  one  time  of  meeting  Ezra 
Cornell  in  New  York,  and  he  always  seemed  to  one  ex- 
actly the  sort  of  man  whom  an  English  caricaturist  with 
pen  or  pencil  would  have  selected  as  a  type  of  a  modern 
American  capitalist.  He  was  a  lean  man,  tall  and  wiry, 
with  a  dry,  curt,  and  somewhat  chilling  manner,  sen- 
tentious, and  given,  to  laying  down  the  law  on  his  own 
subjects.  There  did  not  seem  to  be  in  him  one  gleam 
of  the  emotional,  and  one's  utmost  imagination  could 
not  picture  him  yielding  for  an  instant  to  an  impulse 
of  the  sentimental  or  romantic  order.  One  who  only 
met  him  occasionally  might  well  have  thought  that  the 
last  thing  in  life  he  would  be  likely  to  concern  himself 
about  was  the  spread  of  education.  Yet  it  was  quite 
certain  that  Cornell  was  sincerely  devoted  to  that  cause, 
and  he  founded  his  university  in  the  State  of  New  York 
as  a  means  of  making  the  higher  education  attainable 
to  the  poorer  classes  of  American  students.  In  this 
institution  Goldwin  Smith,  as  I  said,  held  a  high  posi- 
tion, and  many  others  of  its  professors  were  men  of  dis- 
tinction. When  Goldwin  Smith  accepted  a  chair  at  the 
Cornell  University  all  his  disparaging  critics  in  Eng- 
land at  once  proclaimed  that  he  had  now  become  com- 
pletely denationalized,  and  that  in  fact  he  might  be 
regarded  in  future  as  the  most  American  among  Amer- 
icans and  the  most  anti-English  among  the  anti-Eng- 
lish. 

I  can  quite  understand  that  imperial  institutions  of 
whatever  kind  had  certain  elements  in  them  not  suited 
to  the  temperament  and  the  philosophy  of  Goldwin 
w  273 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Smith.  He  appears  to  have  had  always  a  profound 
and  inherent  objection  to  all  wars  of  aggression  and  of 
conquest,  to  the  passion  for  acquisition  of  territory  and 
the  extension  of  empire  which  passes  for  patriotism  in 
the  minds  of  so  many  otherwise  peaceful  citizens.  At 
that  time  the  phrase  "  imperialism  "  had  not  yet  come 
into  vogue,  but  if  it  had  then  been  used  to  represent  a 
prevailing  sentiment  we  may  be  sure  that  Goldwin 
Smith  would  have  been  regarded  as  an  inveterate  anti- 
imperialist.  It  is  none  the  less  certain  that  Goldwin 
Smith  found  much  of  which  he  could  not  approve  in  the 
policy  prevailing  among  leading  American  statesmen 
during  his  settlement  under  the  banner  of  the  republic. 
He  remained  in  the  United  States  for  but  a  compara- 
tively short  space  of  time,  and  in  1871  he  transferred 
his  home  to  Toronto,  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada.  Thus 
he  proved  that  he  had  not  become  denationalized,  as  ill- 
natured  critics  had  declared,  and  that  he  could  find  good 
work  to  do  under  the  protection  of  the  British  empire. 
From  that  time  to  the  present  he  has  remained  a  resi- 
dent of  Canada,  has  occupied  a  high  position  in  the 
University  of  Toronto,  edited  and  founded  Canadian 
magazines,  and  maintained  in  every  sense  his  character- 
istic literary  activity.  He  has,  indeed,  visited  England 
since  his  settlement  in  Canada,  and  he  has  always  acted 
as  one  whose  intellect  and  heart  alike  go  with  the  best 
interests  of  the  English  people.  But  so  far  as  one  can 
know  he  may  be  looked  upon  now  as  one  who  has  made 
his  home  in  Canada  and  expects  to  find  his  last  resting- 
place  there.  He  has  published  many  books  and  trea- 
tises since  he  lived  in  Canada,  and  he  has  never  lost  his 
keen,  quick  interest  in  the  movements  of  England's  in- 
tellectual and  political  life.  Whenever  any  great  dis- 
pute is  going  on  concerning  a  legislative  reform  brought 
forward  in  England,  we  are  sure  to  read  letters  from 

2Y4 


GOLDWIN    SMITH 

Goldwin  Smith,  expressing  his  views,  in  some  English 
newspaper  or  periodical.  No  man  writes  a  more  lucid 
and,  in  the  truest  sense,  eloquent  English  style,  and 
there  is  a  positive  fascination  in  his  way  of  arguing  out 
his  case  whatever  it  may  be.  You  may  agree  with  him 
or  disagree  with  him ;  you  may  think  him  a  prophet,  or 
you  may  try  to  set  him  down  as  a  mere  crank,  but  one 
thing  is  certain — that  if  you  are  a  person  of  any  intelli- 
gence you  are  not  likely  to  put  aside  any  of  his  writings 
until  you  have  read  it  to  the  end. 

I  should  think  that  in  ordinary  private  life  many 
men  must  have  found  Goldwin  Smith  too  intensely  in 
earnest  for  the  easy-going  ripple  of  social  conversation. 
I  may  even  say  that  I  doubt  whether  any  of  Goldwin 
Smith's  warmest  admirers,  and  I  count  myself  as  one 
of  them,  can  have  been  able  to  keep  always  in  agree- 
ment with  him  on  important  questions.  We  are  most 
of  us  inclined  to  make  our  judgment  upon  one  subject 
rather  too  comprehensive,  and  in  our  zeal  for  the  re- 
form to  which  we  are  at  present  devoting  ourselves 
to  assert  some  general  principle  which  is  meant  to  be 
an  all-including  law  of  life.  Then  Goldwin  Smith, 
whom  we  believed  ourselves  to  have  been  faithfully 
following  up  to  that  moment,  suddenly  comes  down 
upon  us  with  an  argument  designed  to  show  that  we 
had,  according  to  the  familiar  phrase,  run  away  with 
the  story,  and  that  we  must  not  be  allowed  to  impel 
our  heads  against  the  proverbial  post.  I  can  easily 
understand  that  Goldwin  Smith  may  have  disappointed 
many  of  his  republican  admirers  in  the  United  States 
by  the  frankness  and  keenness  with  which  he  criticised 
some  chapters  of  American  policy.  I  believe  that  in 
Canada  he  has  engaged  in  more  than  one  controversy 
when  it  appeared  to  him  that  the  tendencies  of  the 
influential  classes  were  moving  in  opposition  to  the 

275 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

principles  of  that  liberal  creed  which  he  has  made  the 
guide  of  his  political  life.  It  has  never  been  his  way 
to  believe  that  patriotism  consists  merely  in  support- 
ing every  policy  and  every  measure  which  happens  at 
the  time  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the  prevailing 
majority.  Indeed,  I  find  it  hard  to  associate  Goldwin 
Smith  with  any  dominant  majority,  and  I  think  of  him 
always  as  of  one  whose  work  in  life  is  to  advocate  the 
principles  of  an  enlightened  minority  and  to  lend  a 
never-tiring  hand  to  the  support  of  some  cause  which 
has  not  yet  won  its  full  success.  Perhaps  that  gallant, 
combative  spirit  would  find  itself  out  of  place  in  a 
period  of  rest  and  contentment  after  an  accomplished 
victory,  and  might  yearn  instinctively  for  the  brave 
days  when  it  was  yet  doing  battle  against  heavy  odds. 
There  are  some  political  questions  on  which  Goldwin 
Smith  and  I  have  never  been  in  full  agreement,  but 
even  when  I  cannot  accept  his  conclusions  I  can  still 
thoroughly  understand  and  appreciate  the  absolute  sin- 
cerity of  his  purposes  and  the  method  of  his  reasoning. 
Many  years  have  passed  since  I  became  acquainted  with 
this  gifted  and  true-hearted  Englishman.  I  knew  him 
first  during  the  early  sixties,  and  I  hope  that  I  have 
been  accounted  among  his  friends  from  that  time  to 
the  present.  Of  late  years  we  have  only  met  at  very 
rare  intervals,  but  we  still  exchange  letters,  and  I  have 
the  advantage,  highly  valued  by  me,  of  learning  his 
views  on  questions  of  great  public  interest  as  they  arise 
from  time  to  time.  I  always  regard  him  as  a  man  of 
that  rare  order  whom  Robert  Browning  delighted  to 
picture — a  man  who  must  be  ever  a  fighter  for  some 
cause  he  has  set  his  heart  on-,  who  could  never  under 
any  conditions  sink  into  that  inactivity  of  personal 
contentment  which  could  withdraw  him  from  interest 
in  the  movements  of  the  world  around  him,  or  who 

276 


GOLDWIN    SMITH 

could  rest  satisfied  to  let  the  world  go  its  way  without 
disturbing  his  peace  of  mind  by  any  question  as  to 
whether  it  was  going  right  or  wrong.  Those  who  know 
Goldwin  Smith  know  that  he  will  never  think  the  less 
of  them  because  they  maintain  sincerely  their  own 
views,  although  he  may  find  himself  compelled  to 
maintain  the  other  side  of  the  controversy.  I  know 
that  he  rendered  splendid  service  to  his  own  country 
by  the  part  he  took  in  its  political  questions  at  a  time 
when  such  a  voice  as  his  was  an  inspiring  force  in  its 
highest  interests.  I  know  that  the  enlightened  opinion 
of  the  best  minds  in  America  bears  willing  tribute  still 
to  his  intellectual  work  for  university  education  in  the 
republic,  and  I  am  equally  certain  that  the  Dominion 
of  Canada  will  ever  hold  in  grateful  recognition  and 
memory  the  value  of  his  teachings  to  that  colony  now 
growing  into  greatness.  He  may  even  yet  have  many 
years  before  him,  for  the  activity  of  manhood  seems 
to  grow  in  its  duration,  and  I  feel  sure  that  whatever 
time  and  physical  energy  may  still  be  allowed  to  him 
will  be  spent  to  the  last  in  work  for  the  good  of  the 
human  race. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

THE    KEELEYS,    EOBSON,    AND    WEBSTER 

ROBERT  KEELEY,  the  famous  comedian,  died  in  Lon- 
don in  the  closing  year  of  the  sixties.  London  was  his 
birthplace  as  it  was  the  scene  of  his  death.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  successful  comic  actors  of  his  time, 
and  it  was  a  time  which  saw  some  of  the  greatest 
comedians  of  our  modern  days.  Keeley  might  be  said 
to  belong  to  the  order  of  low  comedy,  but  it  must  be 
owned  that  he  was  able  to  convert  low  comedy  into  a 
genuine  art.  He  soon  found  his  own  peculiar  line  and 
he  kept  to  it.  His  field  was  limited,  but  within  its 
limits  he  had,  so  far  as  my  judgment  goes,  no  equal. 
His  especial  gift  was  in  the  dramatic  realization  of 
honest,  prosaic  stupidity.  If  I  had  known  or  heard 
nothing  of  Keeley  beyond  what  I  knew  from  seeing  his 
performances,  I  should  have  felt  sure  that  he  was  a 
man  of  high  intelligence  because  of  the  very  skill  with 
which  he  had  taught  himself  to  represent  the  workings 
of  a  stupid  person  trying  his  best  to  make  out  the  mean- 
ing of  some  problem  or  some  situation  that  puzzled 
him.  I  have  seen  him  in  parts  which  an  actor  of  less 
intelligence  might  have  rendered  well  enough  for  the 
purposes  of  the  play,  but  none  save  Keeley  could  fasci- 
nate the  spectator  by  the  lifelike  presentation  of  be- 
wildered dulness  resolutely  and  patiently  trying  to  work 
out  a  meaning  which  still  baffles  it.  Keeley's  face  at 
such  a  moment  in  the  part  he  was  playing  became 

278 


THE    KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND    WEBSTER 

positively  an  artistic  study  of  intense  interest.  One  saw 
first  the  look  of  utter  and  seemingly  hopeless  non- 
intelligence,  then  there  came  into  the  forehead  and 
eyes  some  faint  suggestion  of  an  idea,  some  evidence 
that  the  character  was  beginning  to  comprehend  that 
there  really  was  a  meaning  in  certain  spoken  words 
which  at  first  had  not  roused  any  gleam  of  under- 
standing in  him.  Then  one  saw  that  the  problem  was 
becoming  too  much  for  his  mental  grasp,  and  that  he 
was  about  to  renounce  the  whole  struggle  for  its  mas- 
tery; then  there  came  another  sudden  gleam  of  light 
into  the  eyes,  and  after  a  moment  of  what  appeared 
to  be  an  intense  inward  struggle  the  full  significance 
of  the  matter  broke  in  upon  him,  and  his  whole  face 
lighted  up  with  a  look  of  triumph  which  might  have 
passed  as  a  caricature  of  the  expression  on  the  face  of 
a  philosopher  who  has  at  last  solved  the  problem  to 
which'  he  had  been  devoting  his  intellect  and  his  life. 
Many  of  the  broadest  and,  at  the  same  time,  simplest 
comedies  in  which  Keeley  played  a  leading  part  be- 
came artistic  triumphs  by  the  mere  skill  in  facial  ex- 
pression and  facial  non-expression  which  he  was  able 
to  accomplish  without  an  explanatory  word  or  gesture. 
It  might  seem  to  a  reader  who  has  not  been  long  enough 
in  the  world  to  remember  Keeley,  that  the  actor  whose 
chief  excellence  consisted  in  the  representation  of  strug- 
gling stupidity  had  but  a  very  limited  range  for  his 
dramatic  effects  and  must  soon  have  become  weari- 
some to  his  audiences  by  his  monotony.  But  this 
younger  reader  who  does  not  remember  Keeley  would 
be  rash  if  he  were  to  come  to  such  a  conclusion.  One 
who  never  saw  Keeley  might  well  have  no  adequate 
idea  of  the  various  forms,  degrees,  and  moods,  the 
positives  and  the  negatives  of  expression  by  which 
human  stupidity  is  capable  of  showing  its  straining 

279 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

after  light.  Keeley  as  a  stupid  man  in  one  piece  could 
be  totally  unlike  Keeley  as  a  stupid  man  in  another 
piece.  More  than  that,  Keeley  in  one  mood  of  stupidity 
could  be  quite  unlike  the  same  Keeley  when  depicting 
a  different  mood  of  that  same  character's  stupidity. 

We  all  accept  the  fact,  even  in  our  most  untutored 
days,  that  genius  has  its  different  modes  of  expression, 
and  we  take  this  as  one  of  the  elementary  conditions 
of  human  nature ;  but  I  at  least  never  quite  understood, 
until  I  saw  Keeley  in  one  of  his  favorite  parts,  the 
infinite  variety  of  facial  expression  by  which  a  stupid 
man  can  make  known  at  once  his  stupidity  and  his 
struggle  to  get  the  better  of  it.  I  often  saw  Keeley 
in  the  popular  farce  "  Box  and  Cox,"  which  delighted 
for  season  after  season  the  pit  and  galleries  in  so  many 
London  and  provincial  theatres.  It  was  a  piece  with 
only  three  characters,  the  two  whose  names  I  have  just 
mentioned  and  Mrs.  Bouncer,  the  owner  of  a  small 
lodging-house  in  which  Mr.  Box  and  Mr.  Cox  had 
rooms.  One  of  the  male  parts  was  played  in  London 
by  Keeley  and  the  other  by  J.  B.  Buckstone,  a  rival 
of  Keeley's  in  broad  comedy.  The  two  men  belonged 
to  just  the  same  class  in  life — one  was  a  journeyman 
hatter  and  the  other  a  journeyman  printer.  Each  was 
a  prosaic  and  stupid  personage,  but  the  different  orders 
of  stupidity  were  rendered  to  the  very  life  and  even 
to  the  imagination  by  the  two  performers.  Buckstone 
represented  fussy,  perky,  and  restless  stupidity,  while 
Keeley  was,  after  his  own  fashion,  the  type  of  the  slow- 
going,  ponderous  dulness  he  especially  loved  to  picture. 
Nothing  could  be  more  amusing  than  the  contrast  ex- 
hibited in  every  passage  of  the  play  by  these  two  actors. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  of  the  two  there  was  more  of 
artistic  imagination  required  for  the  creation  of 
Keeley's  part.  The  piece  is  made  up  of  the  bewilder- 

280 


THE  KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND  WEBSTER 

ment  and  antagonism  of  these  two  men,  caused  by  the 
peculiar  conditions  which  had  made  them,  without  their 
knowledge  or  consent,  the  alternate  occupants  of  the 
one  room  under  the  same  roof.  Buckstone  we  under- 
stood from  the  beginning,  and  could  see  into  the  very 
depths  or  rather  through  the  shallows  of  his  fussy  im- 
patience and  fretful  temperament.  But  we  never  could 
quite  follow  at  the  opening  of  each  passage  the  slow 
workings  of  that  property  in  Keeley's  man  which  he 
would  probably  have  called  his  mind.  There  was  al- 
ways some  little  surprise  awaiting  us  at  the  manner 
in  which  this  personage  at  last,  and  after  many  ponder- 
ings,  got  a  glimpse  of  the  actual  meaning  of  some  fact 
or  statement  which  came  up  for  his  study  and  com- 
prehension. Just  at  the  moment  when  it  began  to 
seem  impossible  that  any  gleam  of  the  reality  could 
force  its  way  through  the  thickness  of  that  skull  a  look 
came  over  the  face  and  at  last  shone  into  the  eyes 
which  told  us  that  the  light  was  breaking  in  and  that 
in  another  moment  the  personage  whose  inner  struggles 
we  were  eagerly  contemplating  would  begin  to  under- 
stand what  his  comrade  or  his  landlady  were  talking 
about.  Then  there  came  that  look  of  stolid  triumph 
into  the  face,  and  we  saw  that  stupidity  had  begun 
to  exult  once  more  over  the  success  of  its  unconquerable 
intellect.  If  that  expression  could  have  been  reproduced 
to  the  life  on  canvas  or  in  marble,  the  world  might  have 
had  a  never-fading  embodiment  of  stupidity  working 
out  by  sheer  patience  the  meaning  of  a  riddle  and 
exulting  at  last  over  the  prize  of  its  patient  efforts. 
I  saw  Keeley  in  many  parts  of  greater  pretension,  and 
requiring  no  doubt  a  higher  degree  of  artistic  skill, 
but  I  never  before  or  since  saw  anything  like  so  perfect 
an  illustration  of  self-possessed  and  self-satisfied  stu- 
pidity. 

281 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Keeley  had  a  wife  who  was  herself  one  of  the  best 
comic  actresses  of  her  time,  and  they  had  two  daughters, 
both  of  whom  won  distinction  on  the  stage.  One  of 
them  married  Albert  Smith,  who  wrote  the  amusing 
novel,  The  Adventures  of  Mr.  Ledbury  and  His  Friend 
Jack  Johnson,  a  book  which  had  an  immense  popu- 
larity, and  who  also  won  celebrity  and  made  money  by 
his  lecture  on  the  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc.  Mrs.  Keeley 
long  outlived  her  husband,  and  received  many  marks  of 
public  honor  from  the  members  of  her  profession  on  the 
occasion  of  her  later  birthdays,  when  she  was  attaining 
what  might  be  described  as  a  patriarchal  age.  Not  very 
many  years  have  passed  since  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  her  at  a  London  garden-party,  and  she  then 
seemed  full  of  life  and  animation,  and  could  enter  into 
bright  conversation  with  each  and  all  of  the  friends  who 
crowded  around  to  testify  their  respect  and  admiration. 
At  that  time  an  entirely  new  generation  had  arisen  with 
whom  the  dramatic  performances  of  Keeley  and  most 
of  his  stage  contemporaries  were  but  a  tradition  of  the 
past,  to  be  read  about  in  books  or  described  by  veterans 
who  were  proud  of  their  superior  knowledge. 

We  have  had  new  schools  of  comic  actors  since  the 
days  of  Keeley's  successes.  In  his  time  the  brilliant 
and  delightful  world  of  topsy-turveydom  created  by  the 
genius  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan  had  not  come  into  exist- 
ence. I  have  been  an  observer  of  the  comic  drama  in 
most  of  its  phases  during  these  later  years,  but  I  must 
say  that  my  recollection  of  Keeley's  dramatic  skill  in 
the  kind  of  performance  he  chose  as  adapted  to  his  own 
powers  remains  clear  and  undimmed,  and  in  such  parts 
he  has  had  no  rival  in  my  estimation.  There  were  and 
there  are  some  comic  actors  who  succeed  in  parts  re- 
quiring higher  artistic  gifts  and  exhibiting  far  greater 
variety  of  artistic  expression  than  any  of  those  in  which 

282 


THE  KEELEYS,  ROBSO.N,  AND  WEBSTER 

Keeley  made  his  mark.  I  do  not  set  him  forth  as  one 
of  the  great  creative  artists  in  comedy  who  adorned  the 
age  of  Queen  Victoria,  but  I  am  quite  certain  that  in 
the  peculiar  kind  of  part  he  made  his  own  he  has  not 
had  an  equal.  I  am  glad  to  have  an  opportunity  of 
paying  this  tribute  to  his  memory  and  to  his  success. 
That  success,  such  as  it  was,  was  achieved  in  genuine 
comedy,  and  in  comedy  which  derived  none  of  its  effect 
from  any  unwholesome  element.  The  most  scrupulous 
daughter  might  have  safely  taken  her  mother  to  enjoy 
any  of  Keeley's  performances,  and  the  good  lady  might 
have  laughed  her  fill  over  his  looks  and  his  utterances 
without  any  dread  of  a  censorious  world. 

The  first  appearance  of  Frederick  Robson  at  the 
Olympic  Theatre  was  an  event  in  the  history  of  the 
London  stage.  Robson  was  born  in  humble  life,  was 
brought  up  as  an  apprentice  to  a  copper-plate  engraver, 
but  he  soon  developed  a  love  for  the  stage,  whither  his 
genius  led  him,  and  devoted  himself  entirely  to  the  dra- 
matic profession.  He  played  for  many  years  in  pro- 
vincial theatres  and  for  a  long  time  in  Dublin,  but  I 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  appreciated  dur- 
ing all  this  early  part  of  his  career.  He  worked  merely 
as  a  stock  actor,  never  playing  any  part  which  gave 
him  a  chance  for  the  development  of  his  splendid  gifts. 
I  can  remember  the  whole  of  his  career  as  an  actor  in 
London,  for  his  life  came  to  a  premature  close  about 
mid-way  in  the  sixties,  at  a  time  when  the  London  world 
had  come  to  regard  him  as  one  of  the  most  successful 
and  original  performers  of  the  generation,  and  of  many 
preceding  generations.  His  genius  was  first  displayed 
in  the  performance  of  mere  burlesque,  or  at  least  what 
would  have  been  mere  burlesque  in  the  hands  of  any 
other  actor.  His  burlesque,  however,  was  of  an  order 
which  proved  that  he  had  not  alone  the  gift  of  genuine 

283 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

comedy  but  also  of  genuine  tragedy.  Even  when  he 
most  broadly  caricatured  a  Shakespearian  part  he  was 
able  to  show  that  the  spirit  of  Shakespeare's  tragedy  as 
well  as  of  his  higher  comedy  had  thoroughly  taken  pos- 
session of  his  soul.  When  he  had  ranted  some  passage 
of  the  burlesque  in  the  broadest  style  of  dramatic  cari- 
cature, there  suddenly  flashed  out  from  him  some  words 
of  the  most  true  and  touching  pathos  or  of  impassioned 
tragedy. 

I  have  heard  many  great  critics  say  that  if  Robson 
had  given  himself  up  to  purely  tragic  parts  he  might 
have  become  the  equal  of  Edmund  Kean.  At  one  period 
of  his  career  there  was  a  common  conviction  among  the 
lovers  of  the  drama  that  his  ultimate  destiny  would  be 
to  abandon  burlesque  altogether,  and  to  win  fame  as  a 
tragedian  of  the  highest  order.  But  Robson's  own 
genius  guided  him,  and  compelled  him  to  keep  to  the 
style  of  acting  for  which  nature  had  intended  him,  and 
he  created  a  series  of  impersonations  thoroughly  origi- 
nal and  entirely  his  own.  I  do  not  suppose  that  Robson 
was  guided  in  his  dramatic  course  by  careful  thought 
and  deliberate  resolve,  but  the  style  he  was  to  adopt 
came  in  his  way  and  he  found  it.  That  style  consisted 
of  the  sudden  blending  of  the  broadly  comic  and  the  in- 
tensely pathetic  and  tragic,  and  I  have  never  seen  an 
actor  who  could  play  such  parts  as  Robson  played  them. 
I  have  been  told  by  many  who  knew  him  that  he  was 
not  an  intellectual  man,  or  one  who  profoundly  studied 
the  principles  and  the  masterpieces  of  the  drama.  He 
went  whither  his  genius  directed  him  or  drove  him,  and 
it  is  certain  that  he  could  not  have  done  better  by  any 
artistic  process  of  thinking  out  the  dramatic  forms  he 
adopted,  and  in  which,  as  far  as  I  know,  he  has  never 
been  rivalled.  He  could  embody  the  very  passion  of 
terror,  of  anger,  or  of  pity  in  such  a  shape  that  it  be- 

284 


THE    KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND    WEBSTER 

came  a  living  reality,  and  that  the  spectators  saw  before 
them  not  an  actor  but  a  human  illustration  of  hu- 
manity's various  moods.  When  he  passed  away  from 
acting  burlesques  he  took  to  parts  the  success  of  which 
depended  on  this  extraordinary  blending  of  the  strongest 
emotions  belonging  to  man's  life.  There  was  a  play  in 
which  he  had  to  act  the  part  of  a  miser,  and  while  in 
one  sentence  he  showed  you  the  miser  in  his  meanest, 
most  ignoble,  and  most  ridiculous  moods,  in  the  next 
sentence  he  filled  the  spectator  with  the  deepest  pity  for 
the  poor,  degraded  creature,  and  then  in  another  moment 
the  actor  seemed  literally  shaken  with  furious,  ungov- 
ernable anger,  which  sent  a  thrill  of  something  like 
terror  through  the  whole  house.  One  never  knew  where 
to  have  him  or  what  to  expect,  and  yet  even  the  most 
rapid  transmission  of  moods  and  expression  belonged  to 
the  very  life  of  the  part,  and  the  moods  grew  out  of  each 
other  by  a  perfectly  natural  evolution.  Owing  to  his 
marvellous  skill  his  most  amazing  contrasts  did  not 
seem  as  if  brought  out  with  the  purpose  of  contrast,  but 
as  human  emotions  expressing  themselves  in  the  tones 
and  gestures  of  a  mortal  like  one  of  ourselves.  The 
feelings  which  any  one  endowed  with  a  faculty  for  self- 
study  or  with  imagination  might  have  found  in  his  own 
heart,  but  would  in  the  ordinary  course  of  life  keep 
locked  up  there,  were  made  to  live  upon  the  stage  when 
Robson  appeared  in  one  of  his  favorite  parts.  The 
audience  broke  out  in  irrepressible  laughter  at  one  mo- 
ment, found  tears  spring  unbidden  to  their  eyes  at  an- 
other, and  yet  again  were  made  to  tremble  with  the  very 
passion  of  terror  as  the  actor  abandoned  himself  to  an- 
other of  his  moods.  It  was  not  like  acting,  and  even 
if  you  knew  Robson  personally,  and  knew  that  in  his 
ordinary  life  he  was  but  a  commonplace  sort  of  man, 
you  could  not  help  feeling  that  the  creature  before  you 

285 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

was  expressing  his  own  natural  emotions  with  no  effprt 
to  convince  or  conquer.  The  parts  he  played  belonged 
to  some  pieces  in  which  he  was  the  principal  and  all- 
absorbing  character,  and  the  whole  success  of  each  play 
depended  altogether  on  his  acting.  Yet  even  in  his 
most  sudden  and  surprising  changes  he  seemed  a  more 
real  and  living  being  than  any  of  his  comrades  who  had 
to  speak  some  unimportant  lines  such  as  any  one  might 
speak  in  every-day  life.  Probably  Robson's  genius  was 
naturally  adapted  to  the  realization  of  these  electrical 
contrasts  of  mood,  and  it  may  be  that  if  he  had  fol- 
lowed the  advice  of  many  admirers  and  given  himself 
up  wholly  to  tragedy,  he  might  not  have  been  equal  to 
the  prolonged  sustainment  of  the  part  at  its  highest 
possible  level.  The  world  has,  however,  no  reason  to 
regret  that  Robson  kept  to  that  style  of  dramatic  per- 
formance which  he  had  created  for  himself,  and  did 
not  attempt  to  become  the  rival  of  Edmund  Kean  or 
even  of  Macready.  We  have  had,  and  still  have,  great 
actors  of  the  higher  tragedy  and  the  higher  comedy,  but 
we  have  only  had  one  Robson. 

I  have  often  heard  during  the  zenith  of  Robson's 
career  that  his  dazzling  success  led  to  the  waste  of  his 
physical  powers  and  to  his  early  death.  Success  was 
too  much  for  him,  it  was  said,  and  gave  him  the  means 
of  indulging  habits  which  were  fatal  to  his  health.  I 
do  not  care  to  dwell  upon  this  darker  side  of  his  brief 
history,  but  I  believe  there  were  many  evidences  at  the 
time  which  proved  that,  in  certain  instances  at  least, 
nothing  fails  like  success.  I  think  that  in  any  case 
the  mere  wear  and  tear  wrought  upon  his  muscles  and 
nerves  by  his  style  of  acting  must  have  been  of  itself 
enough  to  sap  the  powers  of  one  who  could  not  boast  of 
liberal  'resources  of  physical  strength.  He  was  a  small 
man,  so  much  below  the  average  height  as  to  appear 

286 


THE    KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND    WEBSTER 

sometimes  almost  dwarfish,  and  the  parts  he  especially 
loved  to  play  were  such  as  seemed  naturally  to  suit 
his  appearance  and  for  dramatic  purposes  to  set  it  off. 
His  neck  was  bent,  his  shoulders  were  stooped,  and 
when  one  saw  that  unrobust  frame  shaken  and  even 
convulsed  by  the  fits  of  fury,  of  grief,  or  of  shuddering 
terror  which  he  was  able  to  present  as  no  one  but  he 
could  have  done,  it  was  not  difficult  to  foretell  that 
such  a  man  must  soon  wear  himself  out  by  his  too  life- 
like representations  of  conquerable  and  unconquerable 
emotions.  Robson's  appearance  would  not  have  lent 
itself  to  any  parts  associated  with  the  higher  creations 
of  the  drama.  One  cannot  imagine  a  Macbeth  or  a 
Shylock  with  such  a  form  and  face,  although  Robson 
was  so  well  able  to  illumine  his  burlesques  of  these  parts 
by  occasional  flashes  of  genuine  and  overmastering 
tragic  passion.  There  was  a  time  when  Robson  had 
made  himself  one  of  the  most  popular  actors  in  Lon- 
don by  displays  of  what  might  well  be  called  buffoonery. 
One  comic  song  of  his,  "  Villikens  and  his  Dinah,"  was 
the  rage  of  London  for  a  while,  and  was  as  well  known 
to,  and  as  often  imitated  by,  the  midnight  crowds  in 
the  East  End  streets  as  the  once  famous  music-hall 
song  "  Champagne  Charlie."  Probably  he  might  have 
gone  on  playing  such  parts  or  even  repeating  that  one 
part  during  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  have  always  re- 
tained his  full  power  over  the  audiences  crowding  his 
theatre,  who  would  have  been  quite  satisfied  if  his 
genius  had  never  sent  out  any  flame  of  thrilling  emo- 
tion; but  the  highest  of  his  faculties  was  the  peculiar 
dramatic  gift  enabling  him  to  bring  out  that  extraordi- 
nary combination  of  the  comic  and  the  tragic,  which 
contained  the  secret  of  his  crowning  success  and  his 
abiding  fame.  I  have  often  wondered  why  since  his 
days  we  have  never  found  any  man  whose  star  lighted 

287 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

him  on  to  such  artistic  performances.  I  know  one 
English  actor  of  our  day  who,  if  he  got  the  chance 
of  a  suitable  part,  might,  I  believe,  work  up  the  elements 
of  comedy,  pathos,  and  passion  into  some  such  repre- 
sentation as  that  which  Robson  made  his  own  in  the 
old  days  of  the  Olympic  Theatre.  But  I  suppose  when 
audiences  get  fond  of  one  particular  style  of  comic 
acting  they  always  want  to  keep  the  performer  to  the 
kind  of  part  in  which  they  especially  admire  him,  and 
the  managers  support  them  by  discouraging  any  desire 
of  his  to  make  an  experiment  in  a  new  direction. 
Robson  was,  however,  a  man  who  knew  his  own  ca- 
pacity and  would  have  his  own  way.  The  managers 
and  the  public  alike  came  to  understand  that  whatever 
he  believed  he  could  do  he  was  certain  to  accomplish 
with  success.  His  name  remains  forever  linked  in 
my  mind  with  those  early  days,  and  I  cannot  recall 
the  living  London  of  that  period  without  a  mental 
picture  of  him  as  one  of  the  most  characteristic  figures 
of  an  epoch  which  accomplished  many  wonderful  suc- 
cesses on  the  British  stage.  A  stranger  could  not  then 
visit  London  even  for  a  few  days  without  being  asked 
by  the  friends  whom  he  met  there,  or  whom  he  talked 
with  on  his  return  home,  whether  he  had  been  for- 
tunate enough  to  get  a  seat  in  the  Olympic  Theatre 
and  see  and  listen  to  Robson.  To  have  seen  him  might 
be  described,  in  the  famous  phrase  which  was  applied 
in  a  different  sense,  as  a  liberal  education — at  least  in 
the  capabilities  of  the  drama. 

Benjamin  Webster,  who  undertook  the  management 
of  the  Olympic  Theatre  in  1866,  was  for  more  than 
forty  years  identified  with  a  high  order  of  comedy 
and  melodrama  on  the  London  boards.  He  had  been 
brought  up  for  the  navy,  but  when  he  was  only  fifteen 
years  of  age  the  peace  of  1815  brought  to  a  close 

288 


THE   KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND    WEBSTER 

the  long  struggle  between  England  and  France,  and 
seemed  to  offer  to  the  boy  Webster  but  little  chance 
of  active  service  in  the  navy.  He  had  always  had  a 
taste  and  apparently  some  natural  endowments  for 
music.  He  studied  for  the  musical  profession  during 
some  years,  but  he  soon  discovered  that  his  real  gifts 
and  aptitudes  were  for  the  career  of  an  actor.  He 
played  with  success  in  the  provinces  and  soon  came 
to  London,  where  he  was  not  long  in  establishing  him- 
self first  as  a  successful  actor  and  then  as  actor  and 
manager  alike.  His  style  was  decidedly  original,  and 
there  were  many  parts  which  he  played  so  well  that  one 
remembered  them  afterwards  only  in  connection  with 
his  own  name  and  his  own  peculiar  style.  When  we 
had  seen  Webster  in  one  of  his  successful  parts  we  got 
into  the  way  of  thinking  only  of  that  part  and  not  of 
the  play.  It  seems  a  strange  link  in  the  past,  for  those 
who  remember  him  well  in  his  greatest  days,  as  I  do, 
to  remember  also  that  he  might  have  continued  to  be 
a  sailor  but  for  the  fall  of  Napoleon.  Webster  was 
for  a  long  time  associated  in  the  drama  with  Madame 
Celeste,  who  seemed  to  be  regarded  even  in  the  sixties 
as  belonging  to  the  prehistoric  days  of  the  English 
stage,  but  who  continued  still  to  act,  and  even  occasion- 
ally to  dance,  with  all  the  vivacity  of  youth,  and  only 
took  her  farewell  of  the  British  stage  in  18TO.  She 
began  as  a  dancer  after  the  fashion  of  those  great 
dancers  whose  fame  was  still  living  and  whose  tradi- 
tions she  endeavored  to  maintain,  the  Taglionis,  the 
Fanny  Elsslers,  and  the  Carlotta  Grisis,  and  she  soon 
settled  into  the  acting  of  parts  in  which  on  occasions 
belonging  to  the  piece  itself  she  introduced  an  illustra- 
tion of  her  earlier  art.  She  delighted  generations  by 
her  acting  in  a  piece  then  universally  popular,  and 
made  especially  popular  by  her,  called  "  Green 
»  289 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

Bushes."  I  remember  reading  in  one  of  the  comic 
papers  of  the  time,  a  paper  started  in  futile  rivalry 
to  Punch,  an  article  professing  to  be  the  story  of  a  man 
whose  earliest  theatrical  memories  enshrined  that  per- 
formance, who  afterwards  travelled  far  and  wide,  re- 
turned to  London  after  many  years  to  be  delighted 
by  the  same  actress  in  the  same  part.  Returning  to 
London  again  after  another  prolonged  absence  when 
he  was  becoming  an  old  man,  he  found  Madame  Celeste 
in  the  freshness  of  eternal  youth  drawing  new  crowds 
of  the  passing  generation  to  applaud  her  in  "  Green 
Bushes."  It  makes  one  feel  very  old,  indeed,  to  re- 
member that  one  saw  Madame  Celeste  in  "  Green 
Bushes,"  and  that  she  and  the  piece  have  long  since 
become  mere  traditions  of  the  stage.  Madame  Celeste 
was  as  well  known  and  as  successful  in  the  United 
States  as  in  England,  although  it  was  not  then  the 
habit  of  every  one  who  made  a  triumph  on  the  English 
stage  to  seek  out  new  audiences  in  the  theatres  of  the 
American  republic. 

Webster  could  not,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  really  great  actors  adorning  our  London  boards, 
for  it  could  not  be  said  of  him  that  he  had  created  a 
style  of  acting  absolutely  original  and  entirely  his  own. 
But  he  never  assumed  any  part  which  he  was  not  able 
to  work  out  to  its  very  best,  and  he  thus  became  thor- 
oughly identified  with  the  characters  he  assumed  and 
played  in  such  lifelike  fashion.  His  principal  char- 
acteristic was  the  moderation  and  realism  of  his  acting. 
He  often  appeared  in  parts  which  had  little  or  no 
dramatic  or  literary  merit,  but  he  always  made  the 
spectators  believe  that  they  were  looking  at  and  listening 
to  the  very  man  whom  the  author  endeavored  to  set 
forth  as  his  leading  figure.  I  remember  seeing  him 
more  than  once  in  the  familiar  part  of  the  melo- 

290 


THE    KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND    WEBSTER 

dramatic  villain.  Now  we  are  all  prepared  to  make 
great  allowances  for  that  melodramatic  villain,  and 
we  do  not  expect  that  he  shall  move  and  speak  and 
generally  behave  himself  in  the  manner  of  an  ordinary 
mortal.  But  however  absurd  or  melodramatic  might 
be  the  author's  typical  villain,  Webster  always  com- 
pelled us,  for  the  time,  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  that 
extraordinary  creature,  and  to  feel  that  what  we  saw 
and  heard  was  exactly  what  might  have  been  seen  and 
heard  if  any  human  being  had  been  ordained  by  nature 
to  perform  his  villanous  part  in  our  presence.  Web- 
ster never  indulged  in  the  theatrical  strides  and  halts, 
the  startling  gestures  and  bewildering  tones  which  gal- 
lery audiences  were  then  led  to  regard  as  inherent 
constituents  or  accompaniments  of  melodramatic  vil- 
lany.  Webster  conducted  himself  from  first  to  last 
after  the  manner  in  which  humanity  is  wont  to  express 
even  its  most  censurable  emotions  and  projects.  His 
thrilling  passages  were  spoken  in  the  tone  and  with 
the  gestures  of  a  fellow-mortal  in  real  life,  and  yet  he 
impressed  us  with  a  much  deeper  sense  of  obnoxious 
and  dangerous  malevolence  than  we  could  have  got 
from  a  performance  modelled  after  the  traditional  style. 
I  dwell  upon  this  remarkable  gift  of  his  because  it 
distinguished  him  from  all  other  actors  of  the  same 
time  who  were  compelled  by  stage  exigency  to  endeavor 
to  realize  that  now  almost  forgotten  character,  the 
melodramatic  villain. 

Webster  could  play  with  equal  success  many  parts 
which  had  nothing  to  do  with  melodrama,  and  he  al- 
ways left  us  with  the  same  impression  that  we  had 
been  looking  on  the  very  man  whom  the  author  of  the 
play  desired  to  set  before  our  eyes.  I  never  saw  him 
attempt  any  character  to  which  he  was  not  thoroughly 
adapted,  and  which  he  had  not  recognized  as  coming 

291 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

fully  within  the  range  of  his  capacity.  Some  of  our 
greatest  actors  have  at  all  periods  attempted  parts  not 
suitable  to  them,  and  have  had  to  give  them  up  and  to 
acknowledge  the  failure.  But  I  can  say  with  confidence 
that  I  never  saw  Webster  in  any  part  which  he  did  not 
succeed  in  making  entirely  his  own.  Whatever  he  at- 
tempted to  do  appeared  to  be  done  with  perfect  ease 
and  complete  success.  Each  part  I  saw  him  play 
remains  to  this  hour  absolutely  identified  in  my  mind 
with  the  acting  of  Benjamin  Webster.  I  do  not  know 
that  I  should  be  justified  in  calling  him  a  versatile 
actor,  but  I  admit  that  in  estimating  the  variety  of  his 
powers  we  have  to  take  into  account  his  own  instinctive 
reluctance  to  venture  upon  a  part  which  did  not  seem 
to  him  suitable  for  his  best  work.  I  do  not  mean  that 
Webster  limited  his  performances  to  characters  of  the 
same  or  a  similar  order.  I  have  seen  him  play  parts 
utterly  unlike  each  other  in  every  quality,  and  play 
each  with  an  equal  success.  I  have  seen  him  play  parts 
which  were  for  the  most  part  steeped  in  a  quiet  pathos, 
and  I  have  seen  him  play  other  parts  whose  chief 
qualities  were  overflowing  animal  spirits  and  good- 
humored,  roistering  self-assertion,  and  the  one  style 
of  performance  remains  in  my  memory  as  character- 
istic as  the  other,  of  the  actor  who  made  them  live  on 
the  stage.  I  do  not  know  that  we  have  any  English 
actor  just  now  who  could  be  compared  with  Webster. 
I  do  not  say  this  in  any  disparagement  of  our  present 
time  or  as  a  mere  panegyrist  of  the  past,  for  I  know 
well  that  we  have  some  living  actors  who  have  accom- 
plished greater  triumphs  in  their  art  than  were  ever 
achieved  by  Webster.  What  I  desire  to  say  is  that  we 
have  few  actors  now  who  can  attain  the  same  high  level 
of  success  in  so  many  different  parts  and  yet  without 
displaying  a  marked  individuality  in  any  of  them.  We 

292 


THE    KEELEYS,  ROBSON,  AND    WEBSTER 

generally  see  the  actor  himself  in  each  of  the  plays, 
no  matter  how  we  may  be  carried  away  by  the  dramatic 
power  of  the  performance.  But  Webster  had  no  marked 
style  of  his  own,  and  the  spectator  thought  all  the  time 
rather  of  the  character  in  the  play  than  of  the  man 
on  the  stage.  The  capacity  for  creating  this  effect  on 
the  minds  of  his  audience  seems  to  me  to  have  been 
Webster's  highest  quality.  It  will  not  of  itself  make 
a  Garrick  or  a  Kean,  but  it  can  create  within  its  limita- 
tions a  consummate  artist,  and  such  I  believe  Webster 
to  have  been. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

THE    BANCROFTS 

MABIE  EFFIE  WILTON,  now  Lady  Bancroft,  began 
her  career  in  the  management  of  a  London  theatre  as 
partner  of  the  late  H.  J.  Byron  in  the  conduct  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales  Theatre,  London,  at  the  Easter 
of  1865.  She  had  been  an  actress  from  her  very  child- 
hood and  had  played  in  several  English  theatres,  es- 
pecially in  the  Bristol  Theatre  Royal.  Her  first  appear- 
ance in  London  was  made  in  1856  at  the  Lyceum 
Theatre,  when  she  played  the  part  of  a  boy  in  "  Bel- 
phegor,"  and  she  afterwards  had  several  engagements 
in  London  before  she  entered  on  the  responsibility  of 
management.  My  first  recollections  of  her  belong  to 
the  time  when  she  was  the  central  figure  in  the  bur- 
lesques at  the  Strand  Theatre  which  made  the  fame 
and  fortune  of  that  house  and  filled  it  every  night  with 
enthusiastic  audiences.  It  was  out  of  the  question 
that  any  one  could  then  visit  London  without  making 
his  way  to  the  Strand,  and  it  was  said  at  the  time  that 
the  rush  of  provincial  and  foreign  visitors  to  that  house 
was  so  great  and  so  incessant  that  the  ordinary  Lon- 
doner had  to  make  his  arrangements  far  in  advance  if 
he  hoped  to  have  a  chance  of  seeing  Marie  Wilton. 
The  Bancrofts  have  since  published  their  memoirs, 
which  make  most  delightful  reading  and  render  it 
superfluous  for  me  to  attempt  any  description  of  the 
successful  careers  of  her  and  her  gifted  husband,  now 

294 


THE    BANCROFTS 

Sir  Squire  Bancroft.  The  Bancrofts  were  married  in 
December,  1867.  They  carried  on  their  joint  manage- 
ment of  the  Prince  of  Wales  Theatre  until  the  opening 
of  1880,  when  they  became  lessees  of  the  famous  and 
historical  Haymarket  Theatre. 

The  name  of  H.  J.  Byron  was  for  a  long  time  in- 
separably associated  with  a  form  of  burlesque  much 
of  the  humor  of  which  consisted  in  the  device  and  the 
delivery  of  bewilderingly  ingenious  puns.  Is  not  the 
story  told  of  Dr.  Johnson  that  when  somebody  in  his 
presence  set  down  punning  as  the  lowest  form  of  wit, 
the  authoritative  doctor  declared  that  the  definition 
was  just,  inasmuch  as  punning  was  the  foundation  of 
wit  ?  At  the  period  with  which  I  am  now  dealing  the 
Strand  Theatre  became  the  recognized  fountain-head 
of  that  species  of  humor,  and  the  attempt  to  rival  or 
at  least  to  imitate  the  punning  of  the  Strand  burlesques 
grew  to  be  a  favorite  amusement  in  every  circle  which 
counted  play-goers  among  its  members.  It  was  told 
at  the  time  that  H.  J.  Byron  said  that  his  one  great 
artistic  ambition  was  to  produce  a  burlesque  in  which 
there  shall  be  a  pun  on  every  word.  He  never  quite 
realized  this  peculiar  desire,  but  he  went  as  near  to  its 
accomplishment  as  human  ingenuity  could  go.  We 
have  lost  our  passion  for  puns  during  these  later  pe- 
riods of  the  drama,  and  it  would  be  impossible  now  to 
invoke  the  power  of  that  curious  spell  which  for 
many  years  held  such  a  mastery  over  English  audi- 
ences. 

Marie  Wilton  soon  took  to  better  work  than  the  pro- 
duction of  comedies  having  puns  for  their  foundation; 
she  gave  up  mere  burlesque  acting  altogether  and  de- 
voted herself  alike  as  manageress  and  actress  to  the 
revival  of  genuine  English  comedy.  I  speak  of  this 
as  a  revival  in  the  strictest  sense,  because  for  a  long 

295 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

time  there  had  been  little  or  nothing  of  real  comedy 
seen  upon  the  English  stage.  The  theatres  which  did 
not  give  themselves  up  to  tragedy,  to  the  romantic 
drama,  or  to  burlesque,  made  their  only  attempts  at 
comedy  by  reproductions  from  the  successful  pieces  of 
the  French  stage.  It  had  come  to  be  the  opinion  of 
many  London  managers  and  actors  that  there  was  no 
chance  of  success  for  English  comedy.  The  great  de- 
mand was  for  translations  from  the  French.  I  remem- 
ber some  of  us  arguing  the  point  with  a  friend,  the 
late  Leicester  Buckingham,  who  had  written  and  pro- 
duced many  successful  comedies  avowedly  adapted  from 
the  French.  We  in  our  ignorance  were  expressing  our 
wonder  that  he  did  not  give  us  an  English  comedy, 
and  he  answered  us  by  declaring  that  no  London  man- 
ager would  run  the  risk  of  producing  any  comedy  which 
had  not  already  passed  successfully  through  the  ordeal 
of  performance  on  a  Paris  stage.  Some  of  the  most 
brilliant  achievements  of  Charles  Mathews,  one  of  the 
greatest  light  comedians  who  ever  lived,  were  in  plays 
which  proclaimed  themselves  as  adaptations  from  the 
works  of  French  dramatists.  Charles  Mathews  had 
his  retort  upon  the  Paris  drama  when  he  translated 
one  of  his  own  comedies  into  French  and  performed 
its  principal  character  with  complete  success  on  the 
boards  of  a  great  Parisian  theatre.  On  that  occasion 
one  of  the  most  famous  among  French  dramatic  critics 
devoted  a  long  article  to  the  play  and  the  performance 
and  had  only  one  fault  to  find  with  the  acting  of  Charles 
Mathews.  This  was  in  itself  but  an  ingenious  com- 
pliment, and  was  intended  as  such  by  the  critic. 
Mathews  had  to  play  the  part  of  "  Tin  Anglais  Timide," 
as  the  play  was  called  in  Mathews's  version,  and  the 
fault  found  by  the  critic  was  that  Mathews  spoke 
French  with  a  Parisian  accent,  which  it  would  have 

296 


THE    BANCROFTS 

l>een   utterly  impossible   for   any  ordinary  Britbn  to 
acquire. 

Marie  Wilton  succeeded  in  reviving  English  comedy 
on  the  English  stage.  She  brought  out  the  comedies 
of  the  late  T.  W.  Robertson,  and  no  reader  needs  to  be 
told  that  these  were  thoroughly  English,  the  scenes  and 
events  belonging  to  English  social  life  and  made  up 
of  English  figures.  With  Robertson's  coraedies  and 
Marie  Wilton's  acting  the  spell  of  the  French  stage 
was  broken  for  British  audiences,  and  the  public 
of  these  islands  became  convinced  that  English  life 
and  English  manners  might  once  again  be  as  full  and 
as  fresh  a  source  of  comedy  as  they  had  been  in  the 
days  of  Congreve  and  of  Sheridan  and  Goldsmith. 
Since  that  time  English  comedy  has  never  lost  its  hold 
on  the  English  and  the  American  public,  and  Lady 
Bancroft  may  claim  to  have  borne  a  leading  part  in 
this  momentous  artistic  revival.  During  each  of  her 
theatrical  epochs  Lady  Bancroft  was  equally  success- 
ful, although,  of  course,  the  field  of  genuine  comedy 
was  a  much  nobler  scene  of  triumph  than  any  found  by 
her  during  her  earlier  career  as  a  leading  actress  in 
burlesque.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  even  during 
those  younger  days,  when  she  had  as  yet  shown  no  higher 
ambition  than  that  which  found  its  opportunity  in 
burlesque,  she  played  her  parts  with  a  vivacity  and 
an  artistic  skill  which  I  at  least  have  never  seen  sur- 
passed. I  have  the  most  vivid  recollection  of  her  acting 
in  many  of  these  pieces,  although  I  have  forgotten 
everything  else  belonging  to  them.  The  story,  the 
other  characters,  the  incidents,  the  very  name  have 
passed  completely  from  my  memory,  but  I  still  see 
Marie  Wilton  distinct  and  clear  in  each  part,  the  Marie 
Wilton  of  one  piece  not  to  be  confounded  for  a  moment 
with  the  Marie  Wilton  of  another,  but  each  a  separate 

297 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

and  individual  creation,  as  real  and  as  much  alive  now 
in  my  thoughts  as  it  was  in  the  delightful  old  days  of 
the  Strand  Theatre. 

But  these  were  not  the  parts  which  won  for  Marie 
Wilton  her  highest  artistic  reputation  and  enabled  her 
to  accomplish  the  restoration  of  true  English  comedy. 
Robertson's  plays  gave  her  the  happiest  chance  of 
showing  what  she  could  accomplish  in  dramatic  art. 
While  her  whole  temperament  as  an  actress  was  ex- 
uberant with  the  very  life  of  comedy,  she  never  in- 
dulged in  exaggeration.  One  might  have  supposed  that 
an  actress  who  had  begun  her  career  in  burlesque  and 
had  accomplished  a  great  success  there  would  when 
she  entered  a  higher  dramatic  sphere  have  carried  with 
her,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  some  of  the  extrava- 
gances which  are  the  charm  of  the  Christmas  holiday 
art.  But  when  Marie  Wilton  set  herself  to  make  a 
success  in  that  higher  comedy  which  seemed  as  if  it 
had  been  written  in  order  to  give  her  a  chance  of 
developing  her  powers,  she  left  entirely  behind  her  all 
the  theatrical  peculiarities  which  naturally  belonged  to 
burlesque,  and  became  a  perfect  living  illustration  of 
those  lifelike  English  characters  she  had  to  represent. 
Such  parts  as  that  of  Polly  Eccles  in  "  Caste  "  must 
always  be  identified  in  the  memory  of  this  living  gen- 
eration with  the  acting  of  Marie  Wilton.  There  was, 
to  begin  with,  a  complete  realization  of  the  part  as  the 
author  intended  it  to  be,  and  under  the  impress  of  all 
the  conditions  with  which  the  author  had  surrounded 
it.  Like  all  true  comedians,  she  was  able  to  blend  the 
pathetic  with  the  comic,  and  there  were  passages  in 
which  the  poor  girl  whose  trials  and  humors  all  belonged 
to  every-day  English  life,  could  touch  the  hearts  of  the 
listeners  with  an  emotion  of  tearful  sympathy  not  al- 
ways to  be  called  forth  by  even  the  accomplished  queen 

'298 


THE   BANCROFTS 

of  tragedy  declaiming  her  sorrows  in  the  well-measured 
intonations  appropriate  to  her  more  exalted  lot. 

Marie  Wilton  was  realistic  in  the  higher  and  better 
sense  of  the  word — she  could  express  human  emotion 
exactly  as  it  might  express  itself  in  the  life  of  an 
English  home,  but  at  the  same  time  she  had  that  true 
dramatic  instinct  which  enabled  her  to  divine  the  deeper 
feelings  belonging  to  every  part,  feelings  that  might 
never  reveal  themselves  to  the  ordinary  observer,  in  the 
passing  movements  of  commonplace  and  prosaic  exist- 
ence. She  was  able,  where  she  had  the  opportunity, 
to  show  gleams  of  the  poetic  in  and  through  the  utterly 
prosaic;  she  could  give  that  touch  of  nature  which 
makes  the  whole  world  kin  and  brings  Polly  Eccles 
into  companionship  and  sisterhood  with  the  heroine  of 
romance.  I  must,  therefore,  always  regard  Marie  Wil- 
ton as  having  created  a  new  epoch  in  the  development 
of  modern  English  drama,  and  we  can  see  the  effect  of 
her  work  on  the  English  stage  of  to-day  as  distinctly 
as  we  could  have  seen  it  when  she  was  still  moving 
enthusiastic  audiences  in  her  London  theatre.  Her 
success  was  complete  and  unbroken ;  she  never  touched 
any  part  without  adorning  it,  and  there  was  one  uni- 
versal feeling  of  regret  when  she  made  up  her  mind — 
all  too  early  as  many  of  us  thought  —  that  she  had 
played  her  parts  long  enough,  and  was  fairly  entitled 
to  quit  the  field  of  work  before  the  evening  shadows 
had  yet  begun  to  fall.  Most  other  actors  and  actresses 
who  have  made  a  great  success  are  anxious  to  keep  to 
the  realm  of  their  triumphs  up  to  the  last,  and  will 
not  yield  to  the  reminders  from  outside,  growing  more 
and  more  frequent  and  audible,  that  they  have  done 
enough  for  fame,  and  had  better  not  mar  what  they 
can  no  longer  make.  Marie  Wilton  erred,  if  she  erred 
at  all,  on  the  other  side.  She  withdrew  into  private 

299 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

life  before  she  had  given  any  sign  whatever  that  she 
was  ceasing  to  hold  the  homage  of  the  public.  She 
had  won  celebrity  and  wealth  and  most  other  constitu- 
ents of  happiness,  and  she  made  up  her  mind  that  she 
had  done  her  fair  share  of  work,  and  was  free  to 
seek  for  quiet  and  repose  before  time  had  given  her 
any  hint  that  the  season  of  her  triumph  must  draw 
to  a  close. 

Marie  Wilton,  or  Lady  Bancroft,  as  she  ought  now 
to  be  called,  was  as  fortunate  in  the  artistic  companion- 
ship which  her  marriage  created  for  her  as  in  the  other 
conditions  of  her  life.  In  Sir  Squire  Bancroft  she 
found  a  master  of  his  own  dramatic  art,  and  a  man 
peculiarly  gifted  with  the  qualities  which  make  a  suc- 
cessful theatrical  manager.  Sir  Squire  Bancroft  was 
a  consummate  actor  in  the  parts  which  he  believed 
suited  to  him,  and  he  never  allowed  himself  to  be 
tempted  into  the  feverish  effort  after  success  in  entirely 
new  and  uncongenial  fields,  which  has  disturbed  and 
marred  for  a  time  so  many  a  great  dramatic  career. 
In  such  comedies  as  those  of  Robertson,  Bancroft's  suc- 
cesses came  upon  a  level  with  the  successes  won  by  his 
brilliant  wife,  and  thus  made  their  dramatic  partner- 
ship memorable.  Bancroft's  acting  was  always  natural, 
always  in  the  true  sense  dramatic,  but  it  was  never 
melodramatic,  and  he  never  sought  to  produce  any 
effects  which  might  not  be  associated  with  the  incidents 
of  ordinary  human  life  in  the  every-day  world  with 
which  we  are  all  familiar.  I  do  not  mean  to  convey  the 
idea  that  Bancroft  limited  his  art  to  such  plays  as  those 
of  Robertson,  or  to  the  representation  of  English  life 
as  it  then  appeared,  for  he  made  a  great  success  as 
Joseph  Surface  in  "  The  School  for  Scandal "  and  as 
Triplet  in  "Masks  and  Faces."  During  the  earlier 
part  of  his  dramatic  career,  when  he  was  still  a  pro- 

300 


THE    BANCROFTS 

vincial  actor,  he  had  won  a  reputation  for  the  manner 
in  which  he  played  some  Shakespearian  parts. 

It  seems  somewhat  strange  to  us  who  now  associate 
Bancroft  altogether  with  modern  comedy  to  be  re- 
minded that  at  one  period  his  name  was  in  the  play- 
bill with  the  names  of  tragedians  like  Charles  Kean, 
Phelps,  and  G.  V.  Brooke.  But  even  during  Bancroft's 
latest  performances  at  the  Haymarket  any  intelligent 
spectator  could  see  that  he  had  a  capacity  for  acting 
which  was  not  limited  to  the  faithful  reproduction  of 
modern  manners.  Every  now  and  then  would  come 
from  his  lips  some  sentence  delivered  with  perfect  col- 
loquial ease,  and  in  the  tone  of  London  society,  but 
showing  that  the  actor  had  an  amount  of  dramatic  in- 
tensity and  a  depth  of  expression  which  might  have 
found  their  full  effect  in  scenes  of  more  passionate 
emotion.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  Bancroft 
at  an  early  period  of  his  career  made  up  his  mind  as 
to  the  kind  of  part  which  best  suited  his  tastes  and  his 
capacity,  and  held  to  that  line  by  deliberate  choice. 
My  impression  is  that  he  is  by  nature  capable  of  great 
versatility  in  acting,  but  that  he  soon  found  out  where 
his  best  success  must  lie,  and  of  his  free  will  confined 
himself  to  that  realm  of  the  drama. 

The  portrait  of  Lady  Bancroft  which  appears  at 
the  opening  of  the  book,  written  in  collaboration  by  the 
husband  and  wife  and  entitled  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ban- 
croft on  and  off  the  Stage,  Lady  Bancroft  regards  as, 
on  the  whole,  the  best  and  most  characteristic  repro- 
duction of  her  face  and  figure  at  the  time,  and  I  need 
hardly  say  that  there  were  many  reproductions  of  that 
face  and  figure  during  those  early  years  of  her  career 
as  an  actress  and  the  opening  of  her  enterprise  as  the 
joint  manager  of  a  theatre.  Sir  Squire  and  Lady  Ban- 
croft were  as  familiar  figures  in  London  society  after 

301 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

they  had  both  retired  from  the  stage  as  they  were  when 
their  nightly  performances  were  still  crowding  the 
stalls  and  boxes  and  galleries  of  the  Haymarket.  The 
Bancrofts  had  always  distinguished  themselves  by  the 
zeal  and  generosity  with  which  they  took  part  in  every 
project  for  the  advancement  of  some  benevolent  pur- 
pose, and  their  charitable  help  was  freely  given  to 
beneficent  organizations  which  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  theatrical  profession.  They  could  be  counted  on 
to  give  the  help  of  their  talents  and  their  money  to 
every  deserving  cause,  whether  public  or  private,  and 
I  have  heard  of  many  instances  in  which  the  generous 
and  timely  help  of  the  Bancrofts  never  sought  or  re- 
ceived any  manner  of  notice  in  the  newspapers.  Since 
their  retirement  from  management  and  from  the  boards 
of  the  theatre  they  have  both  appeared  in  dramatic 
entertainments,  got  up  for  the  benefit  of  some  charitable 
institution  or  for  some  theatrical  comrade  of  former 
days  who  had  fallen  upon  evil  times  and  was  in  need 
of  a  helping  hand.  Sir  Squire  and  Lady  Bancroft  have 
always  been  social  favorites,  and  there  was  an  absolute 
and  cordial  approval  given  by  all  classes  to  the  graceful 
act  of  recognition  by  which  Queen  Victoria  expressed 
her  sense  of  the  services  Bancroft  had  rendered  to  the 
drama.  Lady  Bancroft  is  in  private  life  alike  delight- 
ful as  hostess  and  as  guest.  She  is  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  talkers  whom  I  have  the  good  fortune  to  know ; 
she  can  tell  the  most  amusing  stories  and  say  the  bright- 
est things  without  the  slightest  appearance  of  one  who 
is  talking  for  effect  and  who  desires  to  produce  an  im- 
pression on  the  listening  company.  Her  humorous 
sallies,  her  droll  stories,  her  sparkling  phrases,  come 
from  her  with  all  the  simple  and  unaffected  ease  of  one 
who  is  merely  joining  in  ordinary  conversation  and 
has  no  purpose  of  making  a  display.  I  have  been  so 

302 


r-i         03 

09 


THE    BANCROFTS 

fortunate  of  late  years,  during  my  retirement  from  life 
and  work  in  London,  as  to  be  a  near  neighbor  of  Sir 
Squire  and  Lady  Bancroft  in  a  very  picturesque  part 
of  Westgate-on-Sea.  I  shall  not  endeavor  to  express  in 
words  the  inestimable  advantage  of  such  a  companion- 
ship. 

It  may  be  safely  predicted  that  the  career  of  the 
Bancrofts  will  always  have  a  chapter  to  itself  in  the 
history  of  the  British  stage.  The  pair  were  as  success- 
ful in  their  management  as  in  their  individual  art,  and 
every  theatre  of  which  they  took  charge  was  sure  to 
become  a  model  institution.  The  husband  -and  the  wife 
were  very  different  in  their  styles  of  art,  and  each  had 
a  marked  and  distinct  individuality.  But  they  were 
very  much  alike  in  one  valuable  quality — they  could 
both  accomplish  the  greatest  successes  in  comedy  with- 
out calling  in  the  spurious  aid  of  farcical  exaggeration. 
In  this  happy  gift  they  are  both  entitled  to  rank  with 
the  best  actors  of  the  Parisian  school,  who  can  keep  an 
audience  in  constant  delight  and  give  the  fullest  effect 
to  the  most  amusing  and  humorous  passages  in  a  comic 
scene  without  going  outside  the  limits  of  nature  and  of 
art.  Neither  one  nor  the  other  seemed  to  be  acting 
even  where  it  was  certain  that  the  very  realism  of  the 
performance  must  have  been  the  result  of  careful 
thought  and  study.  Each  could  thus  make  even  a  poor 
and  unreal  part  seem  lifelike  and  credible,  and  each 
with  a  really  good  part  to  play  could  accomplish  the 
author's  highest  purpose  and  convert  his  imaginings 
into  a  living  and  human  shape. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

THEEE    QUEENS    OF    SONG 

JUST  before  the  opening  of  the  sixties  the  opera, 
so  far  as  we  knew  it  in  England,  seemed  to  have  fallen 
upon  one  of  those  periods  of  reaction  which  come  every 
now  and  then  in  the  history  of  the  drama,  of  literature, 
and  of  painting  and  sculpture.  The  great  moving 
influences  appeared  for  the  time  to  have  passed  away 
and  we  had  settled  down,  as  is  the  wont  of  ordinary 
mortals,  to  the  gloomy  conviction  that  we  had  heard 
the  last  of  the  world's  famous  singers.  Grisi  and  Mario, 
Persiani,  Jenny  Lind,  and  Lablache  were  heard  no  more 
upon  our  stage,  and  we  were  making  up  our  minds  that 
we  at  least  were  not  to  hear  their  like  again.  Such  is 
our  way  with  regard  to  all  the  arts ;  we  are  ever  ready 
to  believe  that  the  young  people  coming  up  are  not 
likely  to  be  familiar  with  such  a  period  of  artistic  suc- 
cess as  that  which  we  enjoyed  in  our  earlier  days.  This 
was  especially  the  belief  we  held  about  the  opera  just 
then,  and,  as  often  happens  during  such  a  season  of 
dearth,  a  new  influence  was  suddenly  borne  in  upon 
us  which  cast  for  a  time  our  brightest  recollections 
into  a  shadow  and  a  memory.  This  happened  in  the 
April  of  1858,  when  Teresa  Titiens  made  her  first 
appearance  in  the  theatre  then  called  Her  Majesty's 
in  London.  The  triumph  of  the  singer  was  instant 
and  complete.  A  great  musical  critic  declared  that 
"  a  voice  so  rich  in  quality,  so  extensive  and  so  flexible, 

304 


THREE    QUEENS    OF    SONG 

combined  with  a  temperament  so  passionate  and  a  dra- 
matic perception  so  exact,  carries  us  back  to  the  highest 
standard  of  lyric  excellence."  The  critic  went  on  to 
say  that  the  great  line  which  commenced  with  Pasta 
and  was  sustained  by  Malibran  and  Grisi  found  its 
new  vindication  in  the  genius  of  Mademoiselle  Titiens. 
When  the  sixties  had  begun  Titiens  was  the  ruling 
star  of  opera.  The  portrait  set  forth  in  this  chapter 
represents  her  in  the  part  of  Marguerite  in  "  Faust," 
one  of  her  most  successful  lyrical  performances.  She 
was  a  great  actress  as  well  as  a  great  singer,  and  for 
several  seasons  following  she  was  the  reigning  queen 
of  opera  in  Her  Majesty's  Theatre.  There  was  not  a 
tone  of  pathos,  of  grief,  of  love  strong  as  death,  of  the 
gentler  tragic  emotion,  which  did  not  find  its  full  and 
exquisite  expression  in  Titiens'  rendering  of  Mar- 
guerite. Yet  even  that  part  did  not  show  her  most 
characteristic  qualities  at  their  highest  reach.  Her 
genius  showed  itself  at  its  best  and  truest  in  the  illus- 
tration of  characters  embodying  the  most  passionate 
moods  of  human  nature.  Such  a  part  as  that  of  Media 
in  Cherubim's  thrilling  opera,  or  that  of  Norma,  more 
familiar  to  English  audiences,  by  the  once  popular 
Bellini,  gave  her  a  more  complete  opportunity  for  the 
display  of  her  marvellous  dramatic  as  well  as  lyrical 
powers.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  any  great  singer 
ever  became  more  thoroughly  identified  with  a  part  in 
the  admiration  of  English  audiences  than  Titiens  did 
in  that  opera  of  "  Norma,"  which  is  now  so  seldom 
presented  on  an  English  stage.  Titiens  was  Hun- 
garian by  extraction;  she  was  born  in  Hamburg  and 
made  her  first  great  success  in  Germany  during  1849. 
She  was  still  a  young  woman  when  she  achieved  her 
splendid  triumph  in  the  London  opera-house.  Many 
years  later  she  visited  the  United  States,  and  there, 
»  305 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

too,  accomplished  a  complete  success.  Titiens  was  as 
great  in  oratorio  as  in  the  lyrical  drama,  and  no  one 
who  ever  heard  her  sing  sacred  music  is  ever  likely  to 
forget  the  impression  it  wrought  upon  him.  She  was 
not  exactly  beautiful  in  feature,  but  her  face  and  her 
eyes  had  such  expression  that  the  listening  gazer  had 
little  thought  of  criticism  so  far  as  mere  personal  ap- 
pearance was  concerned,  and  found  all  his  faculties 
absorbed  in  admiration  for  her  voice  and  her  acting. 
Every  note  which  she  sang  received  new  meaning  from 
her  eyes  and  her  looks,  her  gestures  and  her  movements. 
She  was,  indeed,  a  queen  of  her  art.  In  her  own  line 
she  had  not  in  my  recollection  any  rival,  and  when  I 
recall  in  memory  all  the  great  operatic  singers  whom 
I  have  heard,  I  still  find  that  in  the  parts  she  made  her 
own  she  stands  unrivalled. 

The  public  does  not  now  hold  in  much  esteem  the 
operatic  works  of  Bellini,  but  so  long  as  Titiens  reigned 
upon  the  lyric  stage  the  world  became  a  willing  cap- 
tive to  her  impassioned  rendering  of  poor  Norma's 
love  and  troubles.  Even  the  younger  generation,  which 
has  all  but  forgotten  Norma  and  her  story,  and  to 
whom  Titiens  herself  is  becoming  something  like  a  tra- 
dition, is  still  impressed  by  the  profound  conviction 
that  the  fame  of  the  great  singer  is  one  of  the  events 
which  make  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  opera.  She 
had  a  dramatic  power  which  in  its  more  tragic  forms 
Jenny  Lind  never  could  command  and  only  Grisi  could 
rival.  She  made  one  of  the  familiar  topics  of  conver- 
sation during  her  time,  and  to  hear  Titiens  was  in 
itself  an  ample  reason  for  making  a  visit  to  London 
from  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  British  Islands. 
I  have  always  had  a  feeling  I  could  hardly  define  in 
critical  terms,  a  feeling  which  associates  her  with  the 
great  American  actress  Charlotte  Cushman.  It  often 

306 


THREE    QUEENS    OF    SONG 

came  into  my  mind  that  Titiens  was  another  Charlotte 
Cushman,  with  a  voice  which  made  her  supreme  in 
opera.  As  Charlotte  Cushman  was  one  of  the  greatest 
English-speaking  actresses  of  the  more  modern  stage, 
the  most  devoted  admirer  of  Titiens  will  see  that  I 
am  not  uttering  any  disparagement  of  her  gifts  when 
I  say  that  she  was  another  Charlotte  Cushman  endowed 
with  a  divine  voice  and  a  musical  genius.  The  artistic 
career  of  Titiens  was  not  very  long;  she  passed  away 
at  an  early  age  from  opera  and  oratorio  in  England. 
She  had  not  gone  far  beyond  her  prime  when  death 
slit  the  thin-spun  life,  but  not  the  praise.  She  will 
be  remembered  forever  in  the  history  of  the  world's 
great  singers. 

The  early  sixties  brought  a  new  diva  to  the  operatic 
world  in  London.  Adelina  Patti  made  her  first  appear- 
ance at  the  Italian  Opera-House,  Covent  Garden,  in 
the  May  of  1861.  That  first  appearance  was  in  the 
part  of  Amina  in  "  La  Somnambula,"  and  was  a  brill- 
iant and  complete  triumph.  The  new  singer  was  then 
a  little  more  than  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  she  had 
already  accomplished  a  great  success  in  the  United 
States.  She  ought  to  have  had  music  in  her  soul,  for 
she  was  of  Italian  extraction  and  was  born  in  Spain. 
If  the  atmosphere  of  Italy  and  Spain  are  not  conducive 
to  music,  one  is  at  a  loss  to  know  under  what  skies  its 
birth  could  find  more  favorable  auspices.  No  one 
who  lived  in  London  during  1861  can  ever  forget  the 
effect  created  by  Patti's  singing  and  acting.  She  had 
in  her  the  genius  of  the  singer  and  of  the  actress.  Her 
voice  was  exquisite  in  all  the  unending  variety  of  its 
tone,  and  it  had  a  range  and  a  compass  which  the  com- 
paratively fragile  appearance  of  the  young  singer  would 
not  have  led  one  to  expect.  She  appeared  in  a  great 
many  parts  and  in  all  with  something  like  equal  suc- 

307 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

cess.  She  was  most  popular,  perhaps,  in  parts  combin- 
ing delicate  pathos  with  bright  and  graceful  humor, 
but  she  accomplished  more  than  one  triumph  in  char- 
acters which  demanded  tragic  force  and  the  deepest 
tones  of  passionate  grief.  She  was  not  a  queen  of  ex- 
alted lyric  tragedy  like  Titiens,  but  when  rendering 
into  music  and  into  dramatic  expression  all  the  gentler 
emotions  of  the  human  heart,  the  maidenly  love,  the 
intense  womanly  sorrow,  the  bright  and  delicate  play- 
fulness of  happy  girlhood  soon  to  be  crossed  by  suffer- 
ing, she  has  never  within  my  recollection  had  a  superior 
on  the  operatic  stage.  Her  personal  charms  and  the 
grace  of  her  movements  seemed  to  be  the  natural  ac- 
companiments of  her  voice  and  her  lyric  power.  She 
had  all  London  at  her  feet,  and  although  other  great 
singers  came  up  from  time  to  time,  she  was  for  many 
seasons  the  star  of  a  London  opera-house,  and  always 
maintained  the  same  place  in  public  admiration,  I 
might  even  say  in  public  affection,  which  she  won  on 
the  night  of  her  first  appearance  in  London.  I  remem- 
ber having  heard  with  much  interest  during  Patti's 
first  season  in  London  about  her  love  for  the  open  air 
and  her  anxiety  to  escape  as  soon  as  possible  every 
evening  from  the  streets  of  London's  West  End — in- 
clinations not  often  to  be  found  among  the  celebrities 
of  the  opera  and  the  stage.  During  a  great  part  of  her 
early  London  career  she  occupied  a  house  in  the  un- 
fashionable region  of  Clapham  Common  —  I  wonder 
whether  any  other  queen  of  song  has  ever  lived  there 
at  the  height  of  her  fame — and  it  used  to  be  a  delight 
to  her  to  drive  every  night  from  Oovent  Garden  into 
the  roads  of  South  London  and  to  enjoy  the  atmosphere 
of  the  breezy  common  with  its  rare  trees  and  its  little 
lake.  In  later  years,  as  we  all  know,  she  made  her  home 
for  the  most  part  in  the  Welsh  castle  of  which  she  be- 

308 


THREE    QUEENS    OF    SONG 

came  the  owner,  and  where  she  created  an  exquisite 
private  theatre  for  the  delight  of  her  friends  and  her- 
self. Madame  Patti  was  always  great  in  concerts  as 
well  as  in  opera,  and  was  ever  ready  to  give  her  help, 
the  help  of  her  voice,  her  genius,  and  her  fame,  to 
the  cause  of  any  deserving  public  charity.  The  Eng- 
lish people  came  in  the  end  to  regard  her  as  one  of 
themselves,  and  although  she  still  accomplished  great 
operatic  tours  to  distant  countries,  it  was  always  taken 
for  granted  that  she  would  return  in  due  course  to 
her  home  on  British  soil.  One  of  her  greatest  successes 
was  achieved  in  Russia,  where  she  received  from  the 
reigning  emperor  the  honorable  and  honorary  appoint- 
ment of  first  singer  at  the  imperial  court.  She  did 
not,  however,  restrict  her  appearances  to  the  countries 
where  emperors  and  kings  could  be  among  her  listeners, 
for  she  won  splendid  success  and  received  large  sums 
of  money  during  two  seasons  in  that  very  much  out- 
lying country  the  Argentine  Republic.  I  do  not  re- 
member any  great  operatic  singer  of  our  time  who 
won  a  more  unqualified  popularity  among  her  audiences 
of  whatever  country  than  that  achieved  by  Madame 
Patti.  Her  real  gifts  were  at  once  discerned  and  recog- 
nized, she  had  a  place  to  herself,  and  was  hardly  ever 
made  a  subject  of  disparaging  comparison  with  other 
great  singers.  She  was  not,  as  I  have  said,  set  up  as  a 
rival  to  the  great  singers  of  more  impassioned  tragedy ; 
she  was  taken  for  exactly  what  she  was,  for  a  singer 
who  had  created  her  own  style  of  sweet,  playful,  gentle, 
and  pathetic  emotion. 

Even  at  the  height  of  Grisi's  fame  there  were  some 
critics  who  made  a  sort  of  school  of  their  own  by  en- 
deavoring to  find  fault  with  the  style  of  that  thrilling 
queen  of  opera,  and  who  seemed  to  think  it  a  proof  of 
their  own  superior  culture  that  they  could  find  fault 

309 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

with  her  rendering  of  this  or  that  passage  in  an  opera, 
or  even  with  her  whole  conception  of  some  one  part. 
But  everybody  took  Patti  exactly  as  she  was,  and 
cordially  recognized  that  she  accomplished  to  absolute 
perfection  every  part  she  undertook.  I  may  also  say 
that  I  do  not  think  any  foreign  singer  ever  became  so 
fully  at  home  in  English  life  as  Patti  did  almost  imme- 
diately after  her  first  great  success  in  London.  One 
heard  of  her  everywhere  in  English  social  life.  She 
was  the  ornament  of  London  receptions  and  evening 
parties;  she  was  always  taking  a  part  in  this  or  that 
enterprise  for  the  benefit  of  a  public  charity;  she  be- 
came a  leading  member  of  all  manner  of  societies  hav- 
ing no  direct  association  with  the  stage.  I  have  not 
heard  her  or  seen  her  for  many  years,  but  it  seems  an 
impossibility  even  to  think  of  Adelina  Patti  as  growing 
old.  It  is  my  ill  fortune  to  have  heard  Jenny  Lind  only 
in  her  later  days,  when  she  sang  at  a  concert  given  in 
London  for  some  charitable  purpose,  and  then,  indeed, 
it  seemed  hard  to  realize  that  this  was  the  singer  who, 
within  my  own  recollection,  had  bewitched  the  world  by 
her  voice.  My  memory  of  Patti  must  be  ever  the  same, 
and  with  her  there  must  remain  in  my  mind  the  charm 
of  eternal  youth.  If  years  have  changed  her  in  any 
way  I  at  least  have  not  known  it. 

The  first  appearance  of  Christine  Nilsson  in  London 
may  well  be  described  as  one  of  the  events  of  the  sixties. 
This  great  singer  suddenly  arose  like  a  new  star  in  the 
sky  of  the  lyric  drama.  She  had  made  a  splendid  suc- 
cess in  Paris  during  1864;  but  Londoners  in  the  days 
of  the  sixties  did  not  follow  the  course  of  operatic 
meteors  arising  above  other  horizons  with  the  close  at- 
tention which  is  easy  in  these  days  of  rapid  telegraphic 
intercourse  between  the  British  metropolis  and  foreign 
capitals.  The  men  and  women  in  London  society  who 

310 


THREE    QUEENS    OF    SONG 

made  a  study  of  music  and  took  a  deep  interest  in  every 
new  musical  career  had  come  to  know  long  before  1867 
that  another  Swedish  Nightingale  was  following  in  the 
path  of  Jenny  Lind.  But  the  British  public  in  general 
took  only  a  languid  interest  in  the  foreign  stage,  and 
especially  in  foreign  opera,  so  the  announcement  of 
Christine  Nilsson's  first  appearance  was  not  awaited 
with  intense  expectation  by  the  ordinary  visitors  to  the 
two  rival  opera-houses.  We  had  made  up  our  minds  to 
the  belief  that  there  could  be  only  one  Swedish  Nightin- 
gale, that  Jenny  Lind  was  that  bird  of  song,  and  Jenny 
Lind  had  had  her  full  triumph,  her  unsurpassed  suc- 
cess, and  was  then  living  upon  her  fame.  Therefore, 
while  all  students  of  music  and  accomplished  musical 
critics  had  learned  already  that  there  was  an  event  to  be 
looked  for  when  the  new  singer  should  challenge  the 
judgment  of  a  London  audience,  the  usual  opera-goer 
was  quite  content  to  know  that  an  interesting  novelty 
might  be  looked  for,  and  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  him  to  have  a  seat  in  the  opera-house  on  the  occasion 
of  that  first  appearance. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  being  present  on  that  memo- 
rable night,  and  I  have  some  personal  as  well  as  other 
reasons  for  remembering  the  event.  I  was  then  con- 
cerned in  the  editorial  conduct  of  a  London  daily  news- 
paper which  has  long  since  ceased  to  exist,  and  I  was 
lucky  enough  to  have  a  box  for  Christine  Nilsson's  first 
night  in  London.  It  was  part  of  my  ordinary  work  to 
go  down  to  the  editorial  rooms  in  the  city  after  an  even- 
ing spent  in  the  theatre  or  in  private  society  and  throw 
my  soul,  as  well  as  I  could,  into  my  newspaper  business. 
Therefore,  I  naturally  assumed  that  when  the  curtain 
fell  on  the  last  scene  of  the  opera  I  should  have  to  turn 
my  attention  to  my  editorial  work  and  to  occupy  my 
mind  with  home  and  foreign  politics,  with  the  doings 

311 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

of  Parliament  and  the  threatenings  of  continental  war. 
But  while  seated  in  my  box,  before  the  new  singer  had 
made  her  appearance,  I  received  a  startling  message 
from  my  newspaper  office  which  for  the  moment  cast 
for  me  a  bewildering  cloud  over  the  operatic  stage.  This 
message  was  to  the  effect  that  our  regular  musical 
critic,  a  lady  of  great  accomplishment  in  that  art,  who 
has  since  died,  had  been  suddenly  taken  ill  and  was  un- 
able to  attend  that  night,  and  that  I,  as  the  only  member 
of  the  newspaper  staff  then  in  the  theatre,  would  have 
to  give  an  account  of  the  event  and  pass  judgment  on 
the  new  singer  for  the  benefit  of  our  readers  next  morn- 
ing. Not  often,  I  think,  has  a  mere  literary  man  been 
placed  in  so  perplexing  and  so  responsible  a  position. 
I  knew  nothing  of  music  in  the  cultured  and  scientific 
way ;  I  was  fond  of  the  opera  and  of  music  in  general, 
as  I  suppose  rational  persons  usually  are ;  I  might  have 
ventured  confidently  enough  on  dashing  off  a  criticism 
concerning  a  new  play  or  a  new  actor,  but  to  attempt  to 
express  critical  judgment  on  the  merits  of  a  new  singer 
was  beyond  any  power  I  had  ever  claimed  or  ever  had 
the  right  to  claim.  But  there  I  was — seated  in  that 
opera-box,  the  sole  representative  there  of  the  newspaper 
which  owned  my  services ;  there  was  no  time  to  lose  in 
the  quest,  probably  the  hopeless  quest,  for  a  more  fitting 
substitute,  and  my  only  choice  seemed  to  be  either  to  sit 
out  the  opera  and  write  the  criticism  myself  or  to  leave 
my  newspaper  to  come  out  next  morning  without  any 
account  of  the  great  event. 

I  have  always  regarded  the  success  of  that  evening  as 
one  which  shed  some  of  its  good  fortune  upon  me.  My 
stroke  of  good  luck  consisted  in  the  fact  that  before  the 
first  act  was  over  I  became  filled  with  the  conviction  that 
a  complete  and  splendid  success  had  been  accomplished 
by  Christine  Nilsson.  There  could  be  no  question  as 

312 


CHRISTINE   XILSSON 


THREE    QUEENS    OF    SONG 

to  the  judgment  passed  by  the  astonished  and  delighted 
audience.  Even  those  best  qualified  to  form  an  opinion 
from  their  knowledge  of  the  singer's  recent  career  must 
have  found  their  highest  expectations  realized  alike  in 
the  success  of  Christine  Nilsson  and  in  the  unanimous 
recognition  which  it  received  from  that  crowded  house. 
I  had  no  difficulty  in  making  up  my  mind  that  a  new 
queen  of  opera  had  come  to  London,  and  that  I  was  en- 
titled to  proclaim  with  the  utmost  confidence  to  my 
readers  that  she  had  actually  come  into  her  own.  But 
let  me  do  myself  justice,  although  I  never  made  any 
pretension  to  play  the  part  of  a  qualified  musical  critic. 
I  did  recognize  from  the  first  the  genius  of  Christine 
Nilsson  and  the  exquisite  beauty,  the  marvellous  range, 
and  the  ever-varying  intonations  of  her  voice.  I  think 
I  may  say  that  even  though  the  house  in  general  had 
failed  to  rise  to  the  occasion,  and  had  listened  without 
emotion,  were  such  a  thing  possible,  to  that  voice,  I 
should  have  felt  able  to  declare  on  the  strength  of  my 
own  convictions  that  a  new  singer  of  the  very  highest 
order  had  come  to  delight  us  in  London.  I  should  have 
known,  too,  that  in  Christine  Nilsson  we  had  not  merely 
a  great  singer,  but  an  actress  who  in  her  own  field  could 
find  no  superior.  However,  I  was  not  put  to  the  risk 
of  any  heroic  enterprise  on  that  occasion.  I  called  to 
mind  the  story  told  of  Edmund  Kean,  when  he  returned 
from  his  first  great  performance  in  a  London  theatre 
to  his  anxious  wife  who  was  awaiting  him  at  home. 
She  asked  him  in  breathless  eagerness  what  a  certain 
noble  lord,  who  was  a  patron  of  Kean,  had  said  of  his 
performance.  "  Never  mind  his  lordship  " — I  believe 
he  used  a  stronger  expression — the  great  actor  re- 
plied ;  "  all  I  know  is  that  the  house  rose  at  me."  This 
much  I  knew  of  Christine  Nilsson — that  the  house 
rose  at  her — and  I  knew  that  I  need  have  no  hesita- 

313 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

tion  about  the  full  outpouring  of  my  own  praises  in 
print. 

Christine  Nilsson's  position  was  secured  in  London 
by  this  great  opening  success.  She  had  won  for  herself 
a  place  in  English  opinion  among  the  greatest  singers 
of  modern  times.  She  had  a  distinct  style  of  her  own, 
both  in  singing  and  in  acting.  Her  sphere  was  not  that 
more  exalted  region  of  thrilling  lyric  tragedy  in  which 
Grisi  reigned  so  long  supreme,  nor  had  her  style  the 
almost  infinite  variety  of  Patti's,  nor  did  it  display  the 
occasional  bursts  of  tempestuous  grief  and  passion  with 
which  Pauline  Lucca  could  electrify  her  audiences. 
Christine  Nilsson's  style  was  all  tenderness,  sweetness, 
exquisite  pathos,  intense  womanly  love,  these  moods  of 
human  life  which  seem  to  come  in  with  the  evening 
shadows,  and  where  passion  itself  puts  some  restraining 
measure  on  the  vehemence  of  its  expression.  She  be- 
longed, according  to  my  judgment,  to  the  romantic 
order  of  the  lyric  drama,  and  she  went  through  this 
mood  of  the  lyre  with  full  and  exquisite  mastery.  At 
one  time  there  used  to  be  an  actual  controversy,  not 
about  her  performance  of  "  La  Traviata,"  but  about 
the  story  of  that  opera,  which  was  made  the  subject  of 
public  discussion.  "  Was  it  right,"  one  set  of  dispu- 
tants asked,  "  that  the  story  which  the  opera  embodied 
should  be  put  on  the  lyric  stage  with  the  attractions  of 
a  great  singer  and  actress  to  allure  the  young  and  the 
innocent  into  the  contemplation  of  La  Traviata's  career  ? 
Are  we  not  coming  upon  evil  days  when  English 
mothers  will  bring  their  daughters  to  look  upon  and 
listen  to  such  a  character  set  forth  in  living  presentation, 
and  to  find  their  hearts  stirred  into  sympathy  with  such 
a  heroine  by  the  voice  and  the  acting  of  the  lyric  artist 
who  plays  the  part  ?"  The  arguments  on  the  other  side 
of  the  question  amounted  merely  to  the  contention  that 

314 


THREE   QUEENS    OF    SONG 

no  human  creature  was  likely  to  suffer  moral  harm  by 
the  natural  sympathy  felt  for  the  heroine  of  so  pathetic 
a  story,  even  though  that  heroine  had  yielded  to  the 
overpowering  temptation  of  her  life.  The  discussion 
would  hardly  awaken  very  profound  interest  in  our 
times,  for  we  are  not  much  given  of  late  to  troubling 
ourselves  about  the  direct  ethical  lesson  to  be  taught  by 
every  dramatic  performance  which  attracts  our  atten- 
tion, but  at  that  time  there  was  a  very  keen  debate  as 
to  the  moral  effect  of  "  La  Traviata."  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  a  good  deal  of  maudlin  and  morbid  senti- 
mentality was  awakened  by  the  story  of  La  Traviata  in 
minds  of  a  certain  order,  as  there  had  been  by  the  novel 
"  La  Dame  aux  Camelias,"  on  which  it  was  founded ; 
but  assuredly  the  prevailing  tone  of  "  La  Traviata  "  as 
we  heard  it,  under  the  inspiration  of  Adelina  Patti  and 
of  Christine  Nilsson,  was  one  of  pure  and  generous 
sympathy  with  all  that  was  noble  even  in  a  frail  and 
erring  human  being.  The  success  of  the  great  Swedish 
singer  in  London  lasted  just  as  long  as  she  gave  London 
a  chance  of  testifying  its  appreciation.  Whenever  she 
returned  to  one  of  our  opera-houses  she  found  her  popu- 
larity and  her  fame  still  on  the  increase.  She  visited 
the  United  States,  where  she  made  a  success  not  less 
complete  than  that  which  she  had  won  in  France  and 
in  England,  and  where  she  is  said  to  have  made  a  con- 
siderable fortune  in  money.  Again  in  1872  she  appear- 
ed at  a  London  theatre,  and  she  might  have  gone  on  ap- 
pearing and  reappearing  there  as  long  as  it  suited  her 
to  appeal  to  a  London  audience.  After  that  time  she 
performed  at  St.  Petersburg  and  put  in  an  occasional 
appearance  at  the  theatres  of  other  continental  cities. 
She  did  not,  however,  linger  on  the  operatic  stage,  and 
the  musical  world  knew  of  her  only  while  she  was  still 
in  the  full  possession  of  all  the  charms  of  her  voice  and 

315 


her  lyric  genius.  The  zenith  of  her  fame  belongs  to 
the  sixties,  and  especially  to  her  appearance  in  the  Lon- 
don opera-houses.  She  passed,  in  music,  out  of  sight. 
Hers  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  genius 
asserting  itself  in  spite  of  all  early  difficulties.  She 
was  born  to  poverty  and  to  hard  struggle,  the  daughter 
of  a  poor  Swedish  laborer,  and  she  first  displayed  that 
gift  of  music  which  was  in  her  by  performing  on  the 
violin  at  fairs  and  markets.  At  this  early  period  of  her 
life,  when  she  was  yet  only  fourteen  years  old,  her  skill 
with  the  violin  and  the  flute  attracted  the  attention  of  a 
man  of  fortune  and  position  who  saw  that  she  was  made 
for  a  great  musical  career,  and  undertook  the  cost  of 
having  her  educated  by  the  best  instructors  to  be  had 
at  Stockholm  and  afterwards  in  Paris.  Then  followed 
her  first  appearance  in  the  Paris  opera-house,  and  from 
that  time  forth  there  was  nothing  but  success  first  and 
honored  retirement  afterwards.  Her  face  was  of  a 
beauty  which  seemed  made  for  the  expression  of  the 
music  she  sang  with  such  exquisite  effect,  and  of  those 
dramatic  passages  suited  to  her  genius.  I  have  not 
often  been  present  at  any  event  on  the  stage  which 
marked  itself  so  distinctly  in  dramatic  and  musical  in- 
terest as  the  first  appearance  of  Christine  Nilsson  in 
London.  I  can  look  upon  the  whole  scene  now  as  I 
saw  it  then,  and  can  hear  once  more  that  voice  of  mar- 
vellous power  and  harmony,  those  tones  of  indescribable 
pathos  and  sweetness.  I  offer  the  portrait  in  this  chap- 
ter and  the  pages  I  have  written  to  accompany  it  as 
if  they  were  the  flowered  wreaths  which  we  throw  at 
the  feet  of  a  conquering  queen  of  song. 


CHAPTEE   XXIV 

THREE     STAGE     GRACES 

LYDIA  THOMPSON  was  unquestionably  one  of  the 
theatrical  lights  of  the  sixties.  Her  light  did  not 
ascend  very  high  or  float  very  far,  but  it  was  distinct 
and  clear  in  its  time,  and  it  won  for  her  a  full  popu- 
larity. She  was  singer,  actress,  and  dancer,  all  in  one. 
She  was  not  a  great  singer,  she  was  not  a  dancer  be- 
longing to  that  order  in  which  Fanny  Elssler  and 
Cerito  won  their  fame,  and  she  made  no  pretensions  to 
be  a  great  actress.  She  played  in  farcical  light  comedy 
which  had  occasional  episodes  of  song  and  dance,  and 
whatever  she  tried  to  do  she  did  well.  She  had  a  pretty 
and  expressive  face  and  a  beautiful  figure.  The  charms 
of  her  form  were  humorously  described  in  a  saying 
which  became  popular  in  her  time — the  assertion  that 
Lydia  Thompson  was  the  only  woman  then  living  who 
could  support  a  whole  theatre  upon  her  legs.  She 
would  at  a  later  day  have  made  a  most  graceful  and 
welcome  figure  in  our  modern  musical  comedy,  and 
she  would  have  danced  and  sung  and  acted  quite  well 
enough  to  bear  a  conspicuous  part  in  it.  When  one 
looked  at  her  graceful  form,  heard  her  sweet,  soft 
voice,  and  saw  how  her  expressive  eyes  and  charming 
features  lent  new  meaning  to  every  sentence  she  spoke, 
one  was  not  inclined  to  make  any  invidious  compari- 
sons, but  yielded  himself  up  unresistingly  to  the  at- 
tractiveness of  the  performer.  It  was  quite  certain  that 

317 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

the  manager  who  had  secured  the  services  of  Lydia 
Thompson  could  count  upon  full  houses  and  applaud- 
ing audiences.  When  I  first  settled  in  London,  Lydia 
Thompson  was  a  star,  not  of  the  first  magnitude,  but  of 
a  brightness  which  made  itself  distinctly  seen  in  the 
theatrical  firmament.  After  many  seasons  of  London 
success  and  of  provincial  tours,  where  she  was  always 
welcome,  she,  like  most  rising  actors  and  actresses  in 
our  days,  went  to  the  United  States,  where  she  won 
popular  applause  and  secured  remunerative  engage- 
ments. I  saw  her  during  the  early  seventies  in  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  and  other  American  cities,  and 
was  much  pleased  to  find  that  she  still  carried  with  her 
all  the  youthful  grace  of  form  and  of  movement  which 
had  made  her  so  attractive  a  figure  in  London  at  the 
opening  of  the  sixties.  She  did  not  keep  to  the  stage 
for  very  long,  but  retired  into  private  life  before  time 
had  done  anything  to  impair  the  charms  which  had 
captivated  so  many  cities  and  towns.  Her  great  artistic 
merit  was  that  she  never  attempted  any  part,  never  tried 
song  or  dance,  which  was  not  suited  to  her  style  and 
within  the  range  of  her  powers.  She  appeared  to  have 
an  instinctive  knowledge  as  to  the  compass  of  her  voice, 
her  capacity  for  acting,  and  the  limitations  of  her  skill 
as  a  dancer.  The  praise  might  be  accorded  to  her  that 
whatever  she  attempted  on  the  stage  she  did  as  well 
as  any  other  actress,  singer,  or  dancer  could  have  done 
it,  and  that  she  had  attractions  of  face  and  figure 
which  the  greatest  singers  and  actresses  do  not  always 
possess.  She  could  not  be  described  as  belonging  to 
that  order  of  mediocrity  to  which,  according  to  a  great 
authority,  gods  and  men  have  alike  forbidden  the  poet 
to  belong.  Hers  would  have  been  mediocrity  if  one 
compared  her  with  really  great  actresses,  singers,  and 
dancers,  but  she  never  invited  the  comparison,  and  she 

318 


THREE    STAGE    GRACES 

won  for  herself  a  place  which  was  altogether  her  own. 
I  have  the  most  agreeable  recollections  of  my  many 
visits  to  some  of  the  theatres  where  she  made  her  first 
triumphs,  and  I  feel  certain  that  nothing  but  real 
artistic  capacity  could  have  enabled  her  to  win  so  com- 
plete a  success  within  the  limitations  beyond  which 
she  apparently  had  no  ambition  to  pass.  Her  portrait 
is  well  entitled  to  a  place  in  this  volume. 

In  one  of  the  burlesques  which  were  the  rage  during 
the  sixties  a  song  was  introduced  describing  satirically 
the  dramatic  events  of  the  time.  The  song  declared 
that  "  the  last  sensation  out  is  Miss  Adah  Isaacs  Men- 
ken " — the  last  word  being  pronounced  for  the  impera- 
tive purpose  of  rhyme  as  "  Menkeen  " — "  whose  clas- 
sical style  of  dress  does  not  much  trouble  the  sewing- 
machine."  Miss  Menken,  who  was  a  poetess  as  well  as 
an  actress,  was  born  in  one  of  the  Southern  States  of 
America,  and  made  her  first  London  appearance  in 
1864.  She  played  in  "  Mazeppa,"  a  sort  of  drama 
adapted  to  the  purposes  and  effects  of  the  circus,  and 
taken,  of  course,  from  Byron's  poem.  She  created  an 
immense  sensation  and  became  the  subject  of  a  keen 
controversy,  but  the  sensation  and  the  controvesy  were 
not  caused  so  much  by  her  dramatic  powers  as  by  the 
peculiarity  of  her  stage  costume,  to  which  the  lines  just 
quoted  made  sarcastic  allusion.  Miss  Menken,  when 
strapped  to  the  fiery  Cossack  horse,  exhibited  herself 
in  the  costume  of  the  ordinary  athlete  when  displaying, 
or,  at  all  events,  when  practising,  his  professional  occu- 
pation. Of  course  she  was  carefully  made  up  from 
neck  to  ankles  in  close-fitting  tights,  but  her  ostensible 
and  acknowledged  covering  was  of  the  scantiest  dimen- 
sions. I  do  not  know  that  there  was  anything  in  her 
make-up  which  ought  to  have  astonished  or  scandalized 
spectators  who  were  accustomed  to  the  ballet,  but  the 

319 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

preliminary  announcements  of  her  appearance  seemed 
designed  to  attract  attention  to  something  of  audacity 
in  her  manner  of  presenting  herself,  and  the  effect  was 
an  indignant  protest  on  the  part  of  a  large  section  of 
the  public,  a  pleading  for  consideration  and  artistic  in- 
dependence on  the  part  of  her  admirers,  and,  therefore, 
a  controversy  and  a  sort  of  scandal.  Given  the  pecul- 
iarity of  costume,  there  was  nothing  whatever  in  Miss 
Menken's  style  of  acting  which  suggested  indecorum 
of  any  kind,  and  she  played  her  part  as  becomingly  as 
any  one  could.  She  had  no  claims,  so  far  as  I  could 
judge,  to  be  considered  a  great  actress,  but  it  was  in 
one  sense  her  misfortune  that  the  public  controversy 
put  out  of  consideration  altogether  her  merits  as  a 
dramatic  performer,  and  that  she  was  discussed  and 
criticised  almost  entirely  with  reference  to  the  extent 
of  her  clothing. 

There  was  at  one  time  during  the  early  sixties  an 
exhibition  in  one  of  the  London  theatrical  halls  which 
was  described  as  "  The  Walhalla,"  and  was  introduced, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  by  a  manageress  called  Madam 
Warton.  The  exhibition  consisted  of  the  presentation 
of  living  statues  —  that  is  to  say,  of  men  and  women 
who  represented  famous  groups  of  statuary  and  who 
in  some  instances,  while  covered  completely  by  silk 
tights,  exhibited  otherwise  no  more  drapery  than  each 
sculptor  had  given  to  his  marble  figures.  The  London 
music-halls  have  much  more  lately  made  us  familiar 
with  this  sort  of  display  through  what  were  called 
living  pictures.  Miss  Menken  was  somewhat  unfairly 
regarded  by  many  as  merely  another  illustration  of 
these  living  statues,  and  the  immediate  result  was,  as 
I  have  said,  that  her  dramatic  merits,  whatever  they 
may  have  been,  were  wholly  forgotten  in  the  discussion 
as  to  her  costume.  For  a  time  at  least  she  was  more 

320 


THREE    STAGE    GRACES 

talked  about  and  argued  about  than  almost  any  other 
actress  of  the  day,  and  there  were  family  circles  in 
which  to  acknowledge  that  one  had  seen  Miss  Menken's 
Mazeppa  was  to  confess  one's  self  indifferent  to  the 
recognized  standards  of  social  propriety.  Miss  Menken, 
I  believe,  wrote  several  volumes  of  poetry,  and  whatever 
may  have  been  the  qualities  of  her  poems,  they  cer- 
tainly did  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  contain  anything 
which  could  have  created  a  public  scandal.  One  volume 
of  her  poems  was  dedicated  to  Charles  Dickens,  who 
had  been  very  kind  to  her,  and  she  was  among  the  first 
to  recognize  the  poetic  genius  of  Algernon  Charles  Swin- 
burne, who  was  just  then  making  his  earliest  appeals 
for  that  fame  which  he  was  destined  so  surely  to  win. 

Adah  Menken  was  a  widow  when  she  first  made  her 
appearance  in  London,  and  she  afterwards  married 
Heenan,  the  "  Benicia  Boy,"  whose  famous  pugilistic 
encounter  with  Sayers,  the  English  champion  of  prize- 
fighting, created  one  of  the  greatest  sensations  known 
to  the  early  sixties.  I  believe  Adah  Menken  entered 
the  marriage  state  more  than  once  afterwards,  but  I 
am  not  recounting  her  personal  history  and  am  only 
concerned  in  describing  the  peculiar  effect  which  she 
produced  on  the  London  public  by  her  performance 
or  exhibition  as  Mazeppa.  I  think  she  died  young. 
I  have  always  heard  her  well  spoken  of  by  those  who 
knew  her  privately,  and  I  am  aware  that  she  had  the 
friendship  of  some  distinguished  Englishmen  who  were 
not  likely  to  bestow  it  on  undeserving  objects.  She  was 
unfortunate  in  the  manner  by  which  those  who  managed 
her  performances  had  purposely  or  unconsciously  in- 
troduced her  to  the  British  public  and  thus  created 
a  scandal  about  a  piece  of  dramatic  impersonation  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  judged  merely  by  the 
standard  of  dramatic  merit.  The  sensation  which  she 
*  321 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

created  and  the  fact  that  she  proved  herself  by  her 
poetic  efforts  to  be  a  woman  possessed  of  some  really 
high  artistic  qualities  entitle  her  portrait  to  a  place  in 
this  chapter.  From  what  I  have  been  told,  by  some 
who  knew  her  well,  about  her  sincere  aspirations  after 
dramatic  success  and  after  the  higher  purposes  and 
moods  of  life,  and  from  the  melancholy  tone  of  many 
of  her  poems,  I  have  always  thought  that  there  was 
something  tragic  in  the  fate  which  doomed  her  to  be 
remembered  almost  altogether  as  the  heroine  of  a  con- 
troversy about  the  proprieties  or  improprieties  of 
theatric  or  amphitheatric  costume. 

The  opening  of  Nellie  Farren's  life  as  an  actress 
made  one  of  the  theatric  events  of  the  sixties.  Her 
first  appearance  was  at  the  Victoria  Theatre,  a  theatre 
known  as  the  Coburg  in  earlier  days  when  it  had  a 
dramatic  history  of  its  own,  commemorated  in  some 
famous  novels  of  the  time.  She  appeared  there  in 
March,  1864,  and  a  few  months  after  went  up  a  step 
in  her  profession  by  her  engagement  at  the  Olympic. 
There  she  made  a  distinct  success,  but  it  was  not  until 
she  became  one  of  the  company  at  the  Gaiety  Theatre, 
under  the  management  of  my  old  friend  Mr.  John  Hol- 
lingshead,  towards  the  close  of  1868,  that  she  attained 
to  her  true  position  as  one  of  the  foremost  living  ac- 
tresses in  her  own  style.  She  was  then  recognized  as 
an  unsurpassed  actress  in  burlesque,  and  she  maintained 
that  position  so  long  as  her  health  allowed  her  to  keep 
up  the  severe  physical  exertion  demanded  by  the  per- 
formances in  which  she  took  the  leading  part,  and  was 
almost  always  on  the  stage.  Burlesque  of  this  order 
was  then  somewhat  of  a  novelty  in  London.  It  was 
not  sheer  burlesque — that  is  to  say,  broad  caricature 
of  the  higher  drama — but  had  in  it  much  of  poetic  feel- 
ing and  of  artistic  illustration,  combined  with  light 

322 


THREE    STAGE    GRACES 

comedy  and  extravagant  humor.  It  never  degenerated 
into  buffoonery,  and  Nellie  Farren,  at  least,  was  al- 
ways able,  even  in  her  broadest  comedy,  to  suggest 
that  she  herself  could  thoroughly  appreciate  the  higher 
sentiments  and  purposes  of  the  characters  and  the  per- 
formances which  she  satirized.  It  might,  in  fact,  be 
described  as  a  sort  of  overture  to  that  order  of  high- 
class  comic  opera  which  was  made  immortal  by  Sir 
Arthur  Sullivan  and  W.  S.  Gilbert.  Nellie  Farren 
had  all  the  qualities  needed  to  achieve  a  complete  suc- 
cess in  the  style  of  performance  then  new  to  the  Lon- 
don stage.  She  was  a  genuine  actress,  and,  therefore, 
a  genuine  artist ;  she  had  grace  of  form  and  movement ; 
she  could  put  meaning  into  every  side  glance  and  into 
every  half -suppressed  tone;  she  was  always  comic,  but 
in  her  uttermost  comedy  she  could  now  and  then  touch 
the  hearts  of  the  spectators  by  a  note  of  tenderness 
or  even  of  deep  emotion,  which  showed  that  in  her,  as 
in  all  true  comedians,  the  faculty  of  arousing  laughter 
is  in  close  association  with  the  qualities  appealing  to 
the  higher  emotions.  She  had  especially  the  gift  of 
fascination,  and  she  made  her  audiences  her  willing 
captives. 

I  remember  an  amusing  little  poem  which  appeared 
in  one  of  the  comic  papers  during  her  earlier  Gaiety 
triumphs,  a  poem  professing  to  be  the  work  of  a  devoted 
admirer  who  for  obvious  reasons  could  never  hope  to 
be  her  suitor.  It  is  necessary,  perhaps,  that  I  should 
explain  to  my  readers  at  the  present  day  that  there 
was  a  pun  concealed  in  this  word  "  suitor  "  which  gave 
it  a  personal  significance.  The  lady  whose  stage  name 
was  Nellie  Farren  was  in  reality  Mrs.  Soutar,  and  the 
somewhat  obvious  pun  explained  the  regret  of  her 
poetic  admirer  that  he  could  not  be  hers  in  that  sense. 
The  poet  got  over  all  difficulties  as  to  the  nomenclature 

323 


PORTRAITS    OF   THE    SIXTIES 

of  his  heroine  by  describing  her  as  "  Little  What's-Her- 
Name."  He  declared  in  one  of  his  closing  verses,  so 
far  as  I  can  recollect,  that  he  could  seek  no  higher 
honor  and  could  ask  no  higher  fame  than  a  corner  in 
the  memory  of  "  Little  What's-Her-Name."  I  feel  no 
doubt  that  there  was  an  immense  number  of  admiring 
young  men  in  London  and  throughout  the  provinces 
at  the  time  who  sympathized  to  the  full  with  the  ex- 
pressions of  admiration  and  of  tender  regret  poured 
forth  in  this  lyrical  tribute.  The  best  days  of  her 
success  belonged  to  a  period  later  than  the  close  of  the 
sixties,  but  the  opening  of  her  brilliant  theatrical  career 
must  always  be  associated  with  the  decade  to  which  this 
volume  is  devoted.  Most  of  my  readers  will  remember 
her  best  in  the  later  days  of  her  stage  career,  when  she 
was  the  especial  attraction  of  the  crowds  who  filled  the 
Gaiety  Theatre  for  season  after  season,  and  delighted 
her  public  as  the  leading  actress  in  many  famous  bur- 
lesques, from  "  The  Forty  Thieves  "  to  "  Ruy  Bias." 

In  those  days  one  could  never  get  quite  outside  the 
range  of  Nellie  Farren,  even  if  it  were  possible  to 
imagine  anybody  desirous  to  do  so,  because  her  praise 
was  on  everybody's  lips,  she  was  the  subject  of  talk 
in  every  household,  her  portraits  appeared  in  every  shop 
window  where  portraits  could  be  exhibited,  the  music 
of  her  songs  echoed  in  every  street  and  square,  and 
ladies  who  had  but  little  qualification  for  such  a  task 
were  constantly  trying  to  imitate  her  rendering  of  this 
or  that  popular  ballad.  Nellie  Farren  had  the  im- 
mense advantage  that  she  appealed  to  every  sort  of 
audience.  Even  those  who  most  firmly  asserted  their 
claims  to  the  possession  of  the  highest  culture  were  not 
afraid  or  unwilling  to  acknowledge  the  enjoyment  they 
derived  from  her  delightful  and  really  artistic  bur- 
lesque performances.  One  might  see  some  of  the  most 

324 


eminent  figures  in  literary,  political,  and  scientific  life 
in  the  stalls  and  boxes  when  Nellie  Farren  was  playing 
one  of  her  most  successful  parts.  We  all  know  that 
there  have  been  clever  comic  performers  and  singers, 
men  and  women,  who  could  only  command  unqualified 
success  with  what  might  be  described  as  music  -  hall 
audiences  and  who  win  a  fame  which  never  ascends 
above  the  level  of  such  audiences.  But  Nellie  Farren, 
even  in  her  most  popular  burlesques,  was  always  able 
to  attract  the  attention  and  compel  the  admiration  of 
a  cultivated  and  intellectual  order  of  play-goers,  and 
no  suggestion  of  vulgarity  or  of  extravagant  burlesque 
ever  marred  the  artistic  charm  of  her  acting  and  sing- 
ing and  her  graceful  movements  as  a  dancer.  Nellie 
Farren  was  compelled  to  withdraw  prematurely  from 
the  stage  by  a  severe  illness  which  made  quietude  a 
necessary  condition  to  the  prolongation  of  her  life.  Only 
a  few  years  ago  her  theatrical  friends  and  admirers, 
who  comprised,  indeed,  the  whole  dramatic  and  lyric 
profession,  organized  a  benefit  performance  on  her  be- 
half which  proved  one  of  the  most  splendid  exhibitions 
of  combined  theatrical  art  ever  set  before  a  London 
public,  and  realized  an  amount  of  money  enough  to 
secure  the  popular  and  brilliant  actress  against  any 
chances  of  poverty  during  ill  health  and  the  descent 
of  life  into  old  age.  It  seems  almost  impossible  to 
associate  the  idea  of  old  age  with  a  figure  like  that  of 
Nellie  Farren,  which  showed  as  if  it  were  meant  to 
illustrate  the  living  possibility  of  perpetual  youth. 
Still  it  was  only  too  certain  that  although  the  fasci- 
nating actress  and  singer  might  be  able  to  appear  now 
and  again  at  intervals  before  an  admiring  public,  her 
career  of  continuous  acting  had  run  its  course,  and 
nothing  could  have  been  more  to  the  honor  of  the  Eng- 
lish public  and  of  the  dramatic  profession  than  the 

325 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

practical  recognition  which  these  in  combination  con- 
trived to  make  of  the  claim  which  Nellie  Farren  had 
established  upon  their  sympathy  and  support.  Such  a 
recognition  did  honor  alike  to  those  who  gave  and  to 
her  who  received  it.  I  am  now  passing  beyond  the 
natural  limits  of  my  subject,  but  I  am  sure  my  readers 
will  readily  accept  my  excuse  for  having  thus  followed 
the  career  of  Nellie  Farren  down  to  a  period  which 
leaves  the  sixties  far  behind.  My  own  recollections  of 
her  are  naturally  associated  most  with  that  period  of  her 
early  triumphs  when  she  came  upon  London  as  an 
astonishing  and  fascinating  novelty,  even  in  those  days 
of  varied  and  original  dramatic  successes. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

SOME  QUEENS  OF  SOCIETY 

THE  collection  of  photographs  to  which  this  book 
is  dedicated  contains  some  which  remind  me  that  I 
ought  to  give  a  chapter  to  three  at  least  of  the  queens 
of  society  who  reigned  and  held  their  courts  during  the 
sixties.  I  am  now  concerned  especially  with  the  women 
who  made  their  reception-rooms  a  rallying-place  for 
politicians,  risen  and  rising,  who  belonged  to  one  or 
other  of  the  great  political  parties  or  had  as  yet  not 
quite  decided  under  which  flag  they  were  to  rally.  At 
all  times  in  the  social  history  of  every  civilized  country 
there  have  been  queens  of  society  who  were  thus  able 
to  render  direct  and  substantial  service  to  the  political 
cause  they  had  at  heart,  by  making  their  houses  a 
meeting-ground  for  the  leaders  of  their  own  party  and 
for  men  whom  a  mere  admission  to  the  sacred  social 
circle  might  prevail  upon  to  lend  a  willing  ear  to  the 
claims  of  that  party.  In  England  the  sixties  were  es- 
pecially favorable  to  the  purposes  of  ladies  who  desired 
to  win  by  their  courtesy  and  hospitality  new  adherents 
to  the  government  or  the  opposition  as  the  case  might 
be.  That  was  a  time  when  men  saw  a  remarkable 
breaking  -  up  and  remoulding  of  the  old  traditional 
political  groups.  Great  reforms  in  the  franchise,  in 
the  construction  of  constituencies,  and  in  the  qualifica- 
tions for  a  seat  in  Parliament  were  expected,  or  had 
actually  taken  place,  and  a  new  political  world  was 

327 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

forming  itself  throughout  the  British  Islands.  The  old 
divisions  of  parties  were  becoming  less  and  less  recog- 
nizable ;  the  old  names  and  catch-words  were  falling  into 
disuse,  and  nothing  in  the  past  could  make  it  certain 
whether  the  new  men  coming  up  into  activity  might 
attach  themselves  to  the  government  or  to  the  opposi- 
tion. Under  these  conditions  the  influence  of  a  leading 
woman  in  society  might  be  of  much  importance  in 
winning  new  adherents  to  either  side  of  some  great, 
new,  political  controversy.  A  writer  in  an  influential 
American  magazine  described  this  period  of  England's 
public  life  as  marked  by  a  sudden  and  wide  increase 
of  that  influence  which  he  described  in  the  title  of  his 
article  as  "  The  Petticoat  in  English  Politics."  I  do 
not  venture  to  say  whether  that  petticoat  influence  was 
really  much  greater  during  the  sixties  than  at  earlier 
or  later  periods  in  the  history  of  English  public  life, 
but  for  the  reasons  I  have  just  given  that  influence  had 
in  those  days  especial  chances  of  exercising  its  power 
and  of  making  itself  conspicuous.  The  most  influential 
and  distinguished  among  these  queens  of  society  in 
the  sixties  was  Lady  Palmerston,  the  wife  of  the  states- 
man who  held  for  so  many  years  the  most  commanding 
administrative  position  in  England's  political  affairs. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  Lady  Palmerston's  reign  as 
a  queen  of  society  came  to  a  close  with  the  earlier 
sixties,  for  her  husband  died  in  the  October  of  1865. 
Lady  Palmerston  undoubtedly  gave  invaluable  assist- 
ance to  her  husband  during  the  most  important  pas- 
sages of  his  career  as  a  statesman. 

Palmerston  was  a  man  of  the  most  attractive  man- 
ners, who  could  make  himself  agreeable  to  everybody 
by  his  courteous  ways,  his  facility  for  always  saying 
the  most  suitable  thing  at  the  most  convenient  time  to 
the  person  whom  he  especially  wished  to  influence.  He 

328 


SOME    QUEENS    OF    SOCIETY 

had  also  a  great  kindliness  of  disposition  and  a  gift  of 
sympathy  which  enabled  him  to  bring  himself  into 
genial  relations  with  all  who  came  under  his  notice, 
and  on  whom  a  winning  word  or  two1  would  not  be 
thrown  away.  Lady  Palmerston  played  her  part  as  his 
companion  and  helpmate  with  consummate  tact  and 
with  happy  effect.  Her  receptions  were  always  throng- 
ed with  eminent  men  and  women  from  all  countries, 
and  she  took  care  to  be  on  terms  of  friendliness  with 
foreign  ambassadors  and  envoys  and  with  the  ladies  of 
their  families.  She  had  an  especial  gift  of  putting 
foreigners  and  strangers  of  every  kind  at  their  ease,  and 
she  opened  her  rooms  freely  to  all  who  had  any  claims 
upon  her  hospitality.  She  did  not  confine  her  welcome 
merely  to  the  eminent  and  influential  visitors  who  might 
naturally  be  supposed  to  have  some  right  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  prime-minister's  wife,  but  she  had  a  quick 
eye  for  distinguishing  young  men  of  capacity  and 
promise  in  their  own  spheres  who  might  not  in  the 
usual  course  of  things  come  within  the  range  of  her 
courteous  dominion.  Some  newly  elected  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons  might  come  to  London  a  com- 
plete stranger  to  the  great  world  of  society,  and  a  word 
or  two  of  recommendation  from  one  of  her  friends 
would  be  enough  to  secure  a  ready  invitation  to  her 
home  for  this  yet  unrecognized  stranger.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  this  newly  elected  member  of  Parliament 
found  himself  touched  and  delighted  by  the  honor  thus 
unexpectedly  conferred  on  him,  and  Lady  Palmerston 
had  always  the  wit  to  discern  the  best  manner  of  gain- 
ing his  confidence  and  gratitude. 

In  the  political  conditions  then  prevailing  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  many  a  supporter  could  thus  be  gained  for 
Lord  Palmerston  and  his  policy  who  otherwise  might 
have  wandered  into  some  different  camp.  Palmerston 

329 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

was  not  what  we  should  now  call  an  advanced  Liberal, 
though  there  were  some  questions  on  which  he  wholly 
agreed  with  Liberals  in  general.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  were  many  subjects  on  which  he  showed  a  distinct 
leaning  towards  the  views  of  the  moderate  Conserva- 
tives. At  a  former  day  the  distinction  bet  ween  Whig  and 
Tory  had  been  too  marked  to  allow  of  much  opportunity 
for  neutrality,  and  the  changes  had  not  taken  place  in  the 
construction  of  constituencies  which  gave  to  any  but  a 
decided  partisan  of  one  side  or  the  other  a  chance  of 
obtaining  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  later 
years  of  Palmerston's  political  life  were  therefore  ex- 
actly the  time  when  a  capable  and  ready-witted  wife 
could  render  immense  service  to  her  husband  by  her 
readiness  to  form  new  acquaintances  and  to  win  the 
friendly  allegiance  of  those  for  whom  public  life  had 
not  yet  determined  their  sphere  of  action.  She  never 
fell  into  the  mistake  which  a  less  clever  woman  might 
have  made  of  allowing  her  invitations  to  be  indiscrimi- 
nate, and  seeking  for  mere  popularity  by  welcoming 
everybody  who  happened  to  bring  himself  or  to  be 
brought  under  her  notice.  It  was  always  a  distinction 
to  be  invited  to  Lady  Palmerston's  house,  and  to  be 
seen  there  was  enough  to  secure  for  a  rising  man  the 
consideration  of  those  around  him.  She  thoroughly 
understood  that  if  you  want  to  conciliate  a  man  you 
must  pay  attention  to  his  wife  and  daughters,  and  also 
the  importance  of  securing  the  gratitude  of  women  as 
well  as  of  men.  Many  anecdotes  were  told  at  the  time 
of  how  Lady  Palmerston  had  thus  been  successful  in 
securing  the  allegiance  of  some  previously  unknown 
politician  to  the  cause  which  her  husband  had  most 
immediately  in  view.  Such  a  man  would  naturally 
feel  a  thrill  of  delight  when  he  saw  it  recorded  in  the 
newspapers  of  his  locality  that  he  and  his  wife  had  been 

330 


SOME    QUEENS    OF    SOCIETY 

present  at  one  of  Lady  Palmerston's  receptions  and  that 
the  wife  of  the  great  prime-minister  had  treated  them 
with  marked  attention.  The  next  division  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  some  question  of  temporary  interest 
might  prove,  in  the  most  practical  manner,  the  immedi- 
ate effect  of  her  hospitality  and  her  kindness. 

The  enduring  success  of  an  administration  does  not 
depend  altogether  on  the  votes  called  forth  by  some 
great  national  question  in  which  a  man's  course  of 
action  must  be  decided  by  mere  party  principles. 
There  are  many  occasions  in  the  House  of  Commons 
when  the  success  of  a  government  may  greatly  depend 
on  votes  in  the  division  lobby  which  are  not  decided  by 
the  accepted  creed  of  Liberal  or  Conservative,  and  on  all 
such  occasions  the  influence  of  Lady  Palmerston  showed 
its  practical  effect  in  securing  for  her  husband  a  com- 
manding majority.  I  am  very  far  from  wishing  to  de- 
scribe Lady  Palmerston's  receptions  as  given  up  alto- 
gether to  the  welcome  of  politicians  and  the  promotion 
of  political  objects.  Lady  Palmerston's  interests  and 
tastes  were  of  wide  and  varied  range,  and  she  was  al- 
ways glad  to  receive  in  her  rooms  any  distinguished 
representative  of  letters,  art,  or  science,  any  successful 
explorer,  or  any  philanthropist  who  had  done  honor  to 
his  name  by  some  charitable  work.  But  it  is  quite  cer- 
tain that  Lady  Palmerston  as  a  queen  of  society  made  it 
her  object  to  rule  over  a  political  world.  The  queens 
of  society  may  generally  be  divided  for  the  purposes 
of  description  into  three  orders.  There  are  those  who 
direct  their  influence  especially,  as  Lady  Palmerston 
did,  to  the  promotion  of  political  interests  through  per- 
sonal and  private  influence.  There  are  others  who  go  in 
mainly  for  the  picturesque,  the  attractive,  and  the  brill- 
iant, and  who  desire  to  gather  within  their  sphere 
witty,  fashionable,  celebrated,  and  clever  men  and  grace- 

331 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

ful  and  beautiful  women,  and  to  make  their  coterie  a 
living  illustration,  after  modern  fashion,  of  the  House 
Beautiful.  Then  there  is  a  third  set  of  fair  rulers  who 
only  care  for  notoriety,  and  with  whom  the  mere  fact 
that  a  man  or  woman  has  been  much  talked  about  in  the 
newspapers  is  a  passport  of  admission.  Lady  Palmer- 
ston  belonged  unquestionably  to  the  first  of  these  orders, 
and  although  she  loved  to  receive  celebrities  of  every 
kind,  she  did  not  care  about  mere  notorieties,  and  un- 
less the  notoriety  gave  some  promise  that  he  might 
under  proper  guidance  become  useful  in  the  political 
sense  he  would  not  have  had  much  chance  of  an  invita- 
tion to  one  of  her  receptions. 

Another  queen  of  society  in  the  sixties  was  Frances 
Countess  Waldegrave,  the  wife  of  Chichester  For- 
tescue,  who  was  Under  Secretary  of  State  for  the 
Colonies  in  two  of  Lord  Palmerston's  administrations. 
He  was  appointed  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Lord  Lieuten- 
ant of  Ireland  in  1865,  and  held  the  same  office  under 
Mr.  Gladstone  three  years  later,  being  then  made  a 
member  of  the  cabinet,  a  position  which  is  not  always 
occupied  by  the  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland.  Chichester 
Fortescue,  who  held  other  administrative  offices  at  a 
later  date,  was  a  man  of  considerable  ability,  and  was 
regarded  with  much  respect  by  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  was  an  aristocrat  by  birth,  and  represented  an  Irish 
county  in  the  liberal  interest  for  many  years.  At  that 
time  there  was  something  remarkable  in  the  very  fact 
that  an  English  Liberal  should  be  chosen  to  represent 
an  Irish  county  when  the  influence  of  the  landlord  class 
in  Irish  county  constituencies  was  generally  all-power- 
ful and  was  not  likely  to  be  given  to  the  support  of  a 
candidate  who  advocated  liberal  opinions.  To  a  large 
section  of  Londoners  —  that  section  with  which  an 
admission  into  society  is  the  darling  object  of  life — 

332 


SOME    QUEENS    OF    SOCIETY 

Chichester  Fortescue  was  better  known  as  the  husband 
of  Lady  Waldegrave  than  for  his  own  personal  or  politi- 
cal recommendations.  Lady  Waldegrave  made  her  re- 
ceptions an  institution  of  the  West  End.  An  invita- 
tion to  one  of  them  was  held  to  be  in  itself  a  recognition 
of  social  distinction.  Lady  Waldegrave,  however,  did 
not  go  in  especially  for  playing  the  game  of  politics, 
but  loved  to  see  herself  surrounded  by  men  and  women 
who  had  acquired  celebrity  in  any  field.  I  have  again 
and  again  heard  some  one  recommended  to  favorable 
notice  by  the  mere  assurance  that  "  I  meet  him  often 
at  Lady  Waldegrave's  parties."  I  remember  being 
greatly  amused  by  the  reasons  which  the  editor  of  an 
English  provincial  journal  gave  me  for  the  satisfaction 
he  felt  on  being  invited  to  Lady  Waldegrave's  house. 
My  friend  was  a  man  of  great  ability  and  many  ac- 
complishments, who  afterwards  obtained  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons  and  won  distinction  there  during 
his  short  parliamentary  career.  At  the  time  of  this 
conversation  he  had  not  yet  stood  for  Parliament,  and 
seemed  to  me  not  in  the  least  likely  to  be  ambitious  of 
a  place  in  society;  T  was,  therefore,  a  little  surprised 
when  I  saw  his  name  mentioned  as  one  of  Lady  Walde- 
grave's guests.  I  expressed  my  surprise  frankly,  and 
he  gave  me  as  frankly  the  reason  why  he  had  felt  grati- 
fied by  the  invitation  and  delighted  to  accept  it.  Now 
what  does  the  reader  suppose  was  his  one  motive  in 
allowing  himself  to  be  drawn  from  his  professional  re- 
tirement into  the  glittering  world  of  West  End  society  ? 
It  was  not  because  it  pleased  himself  or  pleased  his 
wife,  but  simply  and  solely  because  he  thought  it  would 
annoy  the  editor  of  the  rival  journal  in  the  provincial 
city  where  he  lived.  I  had  had  enough  journalistic 
experience  to  understand  how  an  editor's  interest  in  the 
newspaper  he  conducted  might  induce  him  to  welcome 

333 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

an  invitation  which  would  show  the  rival  editor  that 
he  was  the  representative  of  a  journal  entitled  to  this 
recognition  of  superior  political  influence. 

At  Lady  Waldegrave's  parties  it  could  be  taken  for 
granted  that  nobody  was  to  be  met  who  had  not  some 
claim  to  distinction,  if  not  to  actual  celebrity,  and  a 
modest  man  who  was  only  beginning  to  make  his  way 
might  well  have  felt  almost  bewildered  by  the  number 
of  real  celebrities  by  whom  he  was  surrounded  at  one 
of  these  delightful  receptions.  Lady  Waldegrave  was  a 
charming  hostess,  and  made  all  her  guests  feel  happy 
by  her  genial  manner  and  the  unaffected  sincerity  of 
her  welcome.  There  was  a  larger  infusion  of  the  liter- 
ary, scientific,  and  artistic  elements  at  her  house  than 
was  usually  to  be  found  at  Lady  Palmerston's,  and 
there  was  no  suggestion,  so  far  as  I  have  ever  heard, 
that  one  was  invited  there  merely  because  it  was  hoped 
that  he  might  be  able  to  acknowledge  his  invitation  by 
any  service  to  be  rendered  to  this  or  that  side  in  a  par- 
liamentary division.  Every  one  who  was  fortunate 
enough  to  obtain  admission  to  those  social  gatherings 
had  the  same  opinion  as  to  their  delightful  character, 
as  to  the  interest  which  the  hostess  took  in  the  happiness 
of  her  guests,  and  as  to  the  opportunities  which  these 
receptions  gave  of  mingling  freely  with  men  and  women 
whom  it  was  a  pleasure  to  meet. 

The  next  portrait  I  have  to  introduce  is  that  of  Mrs. 
George  Cavendish  Bentinck,  whose  rule  as  a  queen  of 
society  began  during  the  course  of  the  sixties,  but  ex- 
tended to  a  period  well  within  the  recollection  of 
readers  whose  memories  do  not  go  so  far  back  as  the 
years  to  which  this  volume  is  dedicated.  She  was  the 
wife  of  a  man  who  held  at  one  time  a  considerable  posi- 
tion in  parliamentary  and  public  life,  but  she  did  not 
go  in  merely  for  political  society  in  the  home  to  which 

334 


MRS.   GEORGE   CAVENDISH    BENTINCK 


SOME    QUEENS    OF    SOCIETY 

so  many  guests  were  made  welcome  each  London  season. 
She  kept  open  house  for  society  in  general,  but  she  was 
anxious  to  bring  under  her  roof  all  who  were  celebrities 
in  letters  and  arts,  in  science  and  politics,  in  fashion 
and  in  sporting  life  as  well.  Her  luncheon-parties  used 
to  be  one  of  the  institutions  of  the  London  season. 
George  Cavendish  Bentinck,  her  husband,  held  office, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  in  more  than  one  administration. 
He  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  other  Bentinck 
who  was  familiarly  known  to  the  House  of  Commons  as 
"  Big  Ben,"  and  with  whom  I  was  often  brought  into 
association  during  the  earlier  days  of  my  parliamentary 
life.  Cavendish  Bentinck  did  not  make  quite  so  re- 
markable and  so  peculiar  a  figure  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons as  "  Big  Ben,"  who  in  those  days  might  well  have 
been  regarded  as  one  of  the  curiosities  of  parliamentary 
life.  "  Big  Ben  "  was  a  stout  Tory  in  politics,  but  he 
went  in  now  and  then  for  independence  of  action,  and 
occasionally  displayed  his  independence  with  an  aggres- 
sive ostentation.  At  one  period  of  his  career  he  seemed 
to  make  himself  a  foreshadowing  of  the  Fourth  party, 
although  when  he  did  thus  assert  his  right  to  freedom 
of  action  his  party  consisted  of  himself  alone.  During 
the  sixties  he  once  made  a  vehement  attack  on  the 
policy  and  the  action  of  his  titular  leader,  Disraeli,  and 
the  jest  went  round  at  the  time  that  his  intention  was 
to  set  himself  up  as  a  rival  candidate  for  the  leadership 
of  the  tory  party.  A  satirical  poem  on  the  subject  ap- 
peared in  one  of  the  London  daily  papers  and  created 
a  good  deal  of  amusement,  rather  perhaps  because  of 
the  prompt  timeliness  of  its  satire  than  because  of  its 
claim  to  poetic  humor.  It  was  called  "  The  Panther 
and  the  Hippopotamus,"  and  it  professed  to  describe  a 
quarrel  among  the  animals  in  the  Zoological  Gardens, 
whose  leadership  by  the  brilliant  panther  was  disputed 

335 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

by  the  ponderous  hippopotamus.  I  need  hardly  tell  my 
readers  which  of  these  two  animals  was  supposed  to 
represent  Disraeli  and  which  "  Big  Ben." 

George  Cavendish  Bentinck,  the  husband  of  the  lady 
whose  portrait  appears  here,  was  a  less  self-assertive 
and  eccentric  personage,  and  he  followed  his  parlia- 
mentary career  without  occupying,  to  any  extent,  the 
attention  of  the  outer  world.  Mrs.  Cavendish  Bentinck 
made  her  fame  as  a  leader  of  society,  and  I  believe  that 
those  who  were  frequent  guests  in  her  hospitable  house 
were  sure  to  meet  there  almost  every  one  who  had  won 
distinction  or  seemed  likely  to  win  distinction  in  any 
field  of  success,  including  the  field  of  fashion.  There 
is  always  in  London  some  queen  of  society  endowed 
with  the  same  natural  and  pardonable  ambition  to  make 
her  home  the  meeting-place  of  celebrities.  I  think  Mrs. 
Cavendish  Bentinck  was  the  first  who  within  my  own 
recollections  of  London  life  began  to  win  such  a  posi- 
tion. She  accomplished  her  task  with  unquestionable 
success,  and  is  entitled  to  a  place  among  these  portraits 
from  the  sixties.  I  have  met  with  many  distinguished 
foreigners  whose  first  introduction  to  the  social  life  of 
the  West  End  was  made  in  the  house  of  Mrs.  Cavendish 
Bentinck.  Her  name  will  be  long  and  gratefully  re- 
membered by  many  men  and  women  from  all  parts  of 
Europe  and  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

1LAST   WORDS 

I  HAVE  now  gone  through  the  collection  of  photo- 
graphs which  it  was  my  purpose  to  introduce  to  my 
readers  in  this  book.  In  my  opening  chapter  I  ex- 
plained that,  while  these  portraits  are  all  taken  from 
the  sixties  and  are  characteristic  of  the  epoch  to  which 
they  belong,  they  do  not  profess  to  be  anything  like  a 
complete  gallery  of  pictures  of  the  eminent  men  and 
women  who  were  conspicuous  figures  of  English  life 
throughout  those  years.  I  have  described  them  as  one 
might  describe  some  portrait-gallery  of  the  present  day 
in  which  it  happened  that  many  remarkable  portraits 
were  not  included,  as  one  might  describe  the  contents 
of  the  annual  exhibition  of  the  Royal  Academy  without 
professing  thereby  to  give  a  complete  illustration  of 
British  art  for  that  season.  In  this  volume  every  por- 
trait is  characteristic  of  the  time  which  the  volume  sur- 
veys, and  when  I  have  gone  through  the  collection  my 
work  of  description  is  completed.  There  is  not  a  single 
picture  in  the  gallery  which  does  not  in  itself  help  to 
bring  back  to  the  public  mind  a  distinct  recollection  of 
men  and  women  who  made  the  sixties  an  important  and 
peculiar  period  in  modern  English  history.  In  politics, 
letters,  arts,  science,  and  social  life  the  sixties  have  a 
history  of  their  own,  and  none  of  the  figures  I  have  set 
forth  in  these  pages  is  without  its  appropriateness  and 
importance  in  the  revival  of  those  memories.  The  six- 
»  337 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

ties  constitute  an  epoch  of  great  change  in  almost  every 
department  of  England's  public  and  social  life,  and 
many  of  the  changes  which  are  still  only  in  process  of 
development  owed  their  beginning  to  some  of  the  men 
and  women  whose  portraits  I  offer  to  the  public,  around 
which  I  have  intertwined  recollections  of  my  own.  It 
is  no  feeling  of  idle  curiosity  which  prompts  us  all  to 
take  an  interest  in  the  accounts  given  of  a  past  time  by 
one  who  can  say  that  he  has  seen  and  known  the  men 
and  women  whom  he  is  describing,  and  that  he  does  not 
derive  his  impressions  merely  from  the  study  of  contem- 
porary pictures  or  from  the  reading  of  contemporary 
books.  That  was  the  feeling  with  which  I  undertook 
the  writing  of  this  volume.  I  have  carried  out  the  work 
to  the  best  of  my  ability,  with  the  hope  that  it  might  do 
something  to  bring  my  readers  into  closer  association 
with  the  life  of  those  memorable  years. 

The  sixties  were  memorable  years  in  every  sense. 
They  saw  the  opening  and  they  saw  the  close  of  many 
a  great  career.  Two  of  the  greatest  English  novel- 
writers  of  all  time,  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  died  within 
that  period,  Thackeray  during  its  earlier  part  and 
Dickens  just  before  its  close.  With  these  deaths  there 
would  appear  to  have  come  to  an  end  two  great  schools 
of  British  fiction.  There  have,  indeed,  been,  and  are 
still,  many  pupils  of  either  school  working  in  the  same 
field,  but  no  new  master  has  since  arisen  or  seems  likely 
to  arise.  The  influence  of  Carlyle,  of  Tennyson,  and 
of  some  other  writers  of  the  highest  order,  reached  its 
zenith  during  the  sixties,  and  although  these  men  lived 
and  worked  on  to  a  much  later  day,  yet  they  could  not 
well  have  added  anything  to  the  fame  they  had  already 
won.  The  career  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  and 
the  career,  as  a  poet,  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  began 
in  the  sixties,  and  will  always  be  associated  with  that 

338 


LAST    WORDS 

period.  Some  of  the  greatest  names  belonging  to  the 
dramatic  and  lyric  stage  were  made  known  to  the  world 
during  the  same  years.  In  politics  the  sixties  made  a 
deep  and  lasting  mark.  Some  of  the  most  important 
changes  in  our  political  constitution  were  accomplished 
during  those  years,  and  the  parliamentary  history  of 
these  islands  may  be  said  to  have  begun  a  new  era 
within  that  momentous  period.  The  sixties  also  saw 
the  sudden  uprising  of  Prussia  to  its  position  among 
the  greatest  European  powers;  saw  the  first  evidences 
of  the  approaching  fall  of  Louis  Napoleon's  empire 
in  France ;  saw  the  settlement  of  the  great  controversy 
which  had  so  long  divided  the  Northern  and  Southern 
States  of  America.  The  work  of  Darwin  and  of  Hux- 
ley took  its  first  recognized  form  during  the  earlier 
part  of  that  richly  productive  era.  I  only  glance  at 
these  facts  with  the  object  of  reminding  the  reader  that 
the  sixties  have  a  history  entirely  their  own,  and  may 
claim  to  be  ranked  as  a  distinctive  epoch.  I  question 
whether  any  equal  space  of  time  in  England's  history 
produced  a  larger  amount  of  original  matter.  Every 
portrait,  therefore,  which  illustrates  any  phase  of  that 
period  must  have  its  abiding  interest  for  the  readers  of 
succeeding  generations.  It  is  with  me  a  delightful 
memory  to  have  seen  so  many  of  the  great  figures  of 
those  days,  and  to  have  seen  so  many  other  figures 
which,  although  not  as  great,  were  yet  conspicuous  in 
the  same  epoch,  and  in  their  way  characteristic  of  it. 
Perhaps  I  could  not  more  fittingly  enshrine  those  clos- 
ing and  opening  eras  than  by  mentioning  the  facts  that 
on  the  9th  of  January,  1860,  Lord  Macaulay  was  buried 
with  honor  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  that  on  the  1st 
of  January,  1870,  the  Emperor  Louis  Napoleon  de- 
clared at  the  annual  reception  of  the  diplomatic  body 
in  the  Tuileries  that  the  year  1870  was  destined  to 

339 


PORTRAITS    OF    THE    SIXTIES 

consolidate  the  general  agreement  between  his  govern- 
ment and  the  foreign  powers,  and  thus  tend  to  the  in- 
crease of  concord,  peace,  and  civilization.  I  need  not 
add  that  the  year  1870  saw  one  of  the  greatest  con- 
tinental wars  known  to  modern  European  history,  the 
fall  of  Louis  Napoleon's  empire  and  the  rise  of  the 
third  French  republic.  These  events  may  serve  as  his- 
torical landmarks  for  the  opening  and  the  closing  of 
the  sixties,  and  may  illustrate  the  importance  of  the 
historical  period  they  enclosed.  With  this  brief  retro- 
spect I  think  my  collection  of  portraits  from  the  sixties 
may  now  be  thrown  open  to  the  public. 


THE   END 


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must  appeal  to  every  reader  of  the  Brownings'  poems  more 
strongly  than  could  any  other  book.  It  comprises  every  letter 
that  passed  between  the  two  poets  from  their  first  acquaintance 
until  their  marriage,  with  the  exception  of  one  which  was 
destroyed  by  common  consent. 

THE  LOVE  LETTERS  OF  BISMARCK.  Illus- 
trated with  numerous  rare  and  interesting  por- 
traits. Crown  8vo,  $3  00. 

These  letters  are  written  to  his  fiancee,  afterwards  his  wife, 
Fraulein  von  Puttkamer.  They  cover  the  years  between 
1846  and  1889.  The  first  letter  of  the  volume  is  a  very  in- 
teresting note,  written  by  Bismarck  to  Herr  von  Puttkamer, 
asking  for  the  hand  of  the  daughter,  and  giving  a  long  and 
interesting  account  of  his  religious  belief.  The  letters  are 
especially  valuable,  not  only  from  their  emotional  nature, 
but  because  they  show  the  familiar,  personal  side  of  the  famous 
"man  of  iron." 

THE  LOVE  LETTERS  OF  VICTOR  HUGO. 
Illustrated  with  portraits  of  Victor  Hugo  and  his 
fiancee,  Mile.  Foucher,  etc.  Crown  8vo,  $3  oo. 

These  are  the  impassioned  love  letters  written  by  the  great 
Frenchman  to  his  fiancee.  Mile.  Adele  Foucher,  from  1820 
to  1822.  Eloquence  and  the  most  eager,  fiery  affection  com- 
bine to  make  these  letters  models  of  emotional  literary  beauty. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

E3F* -4ny  of  the  above  works  uritt  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  pre- 
paid, to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico, 
on  refeipt  of  the  price. 


BY  JUSTIN  MCCARTHY 


REMINISCENCES.  Two  Volumes.  Crown  8vo,  Orna- 
mented Cloth,  $4  50. 

A  series  of  descriptions  and  recollections  of  eminent  men 
and  women  with  whom  the  author  had  the  good  fortune  to 
become  acquainted  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 

A  HISTORY  OF  OUR  OWN  TIMES.  From  the  Accession 
of  Queen  Victoria  to  the  General  Election  of  1880.  In  Two 
Volumes.  12 mo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

From  1880  to  the  Diamond  Jubilee.     With  Sixteen  Por- 
traits.    I2mo,  Cloth,  $i  25. 
Set  of  three  above  volumes,  Three-quarter  Calf,  $9  oo. 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  OUR  OWN  TIMES.  From  the 
Accession  of  Queen  Victoria  to  the  General  Election  of 
1880.  I2mo,  Cloth,  $l  50. 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  FOUR  GEORGES  AND  OF 
WILLIAM  IV.  Four  Volumes.  I2mo,  Cloth,  $l  25  each. 

SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.  With  Portrait  Crown  8vo,  Cloth, 
$i  oo. 

MY  ENEMY'S  DAUGHTER.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Paper, 
50  cents. 

THE  WATERDALE  NEIGHBORS.  8vo,  Paper,  35  cents. 
Animated  without  flashiness  or  flippancy,  careful  and 
methodical  without  superfluity  of  detail,  picturesque  without 
vulgar  glare,  thoughtful  and  reflective  without  sermonizing, 
full  without  prolixity,  and  concise  without  conceit. — Daily 
News,  London. 

THE  DICTATOR.     Post  8vo,  Cloth,  $i  25. 

Full  of  love,  revolution,  and  romance,  and  exciting  to  the 
last  degree  on  every  page. — N.  Y.  Journal  of  Commerce. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  pre- 
paid, to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on 
receipt  of  the  Price. 


62'  )B  4 


DATE  DUE 


DTVCRN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FAOUTY 


000  781  690     3 


